Mountain View HS teacher, coach honoring class of 2020 by granting ‘senior wishes’
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VANCOUVER, WA (KPTV) — While the pandemic abruptly ended school years around the country, a teacher and coach in Vancouver doing his part to honor the class of 2020.
Mecca lecca hi, mecca hiney ho – a basketball coach and social studies teacher at Mountain View High School is “Jambi” granting wishes for the Thunder family.
“Talk a lot to my basketball team about controlling what you can control. I started thinking to myself as I am laying there on the couch, that I wasn’t necessarily practicing what I was preaching,” said Mountain View High School girls basketball coach Dan Larson.
Preach on and get your senior wish on with coach Larson.
“It started by going and getting some of my basketball kids some donuts one day and then I started thinking, how could I keep this going?” Larson said.
The sweet gesture keeping rolling through the Thunder during this Spring of remote learning and social distancing.
“Kind of be as creative as I can in the ‘corona world’ here. You can deliver to their door, I’ve mailed some of these, I’ve sent these electronically, trying to find ways that we can reach out without actually physically touching anybody,” said Larson.
A class of 2002 grad from Hudson’s Bay, Mr. Larson is posting the treats, jokes and surprises on Twitter.
“Ones that were kind of within my control, I’ve been trying to knock out one a day and go from there,” he said.
Mountain View senior Kylie Ellett, “I was showing my parents, ‘Look how cool this is. Look what my teacher is doing.’ I was showing my grandparents. That’s why they call it ‘Thunder family’ because we just do things like that for our family, so it’s cool.”
Ellett is headed to play soccer at Southern Oregon and she watched her senior wish arrive at her doorstep for her feet.
Culture wins with the View crew.
“As much as I would like to publicize myself as this amazing person, half of this is for me,” Larson said. “It made me feel good to get out and connect with those kids because I think as teachers and educators, we feed so much on the energy of our students and interacting with those students and when that gets cut off, it’s kind of a big bummer, so this is a small way in reaching out and still having a little bit of that connection and feeling like you are making an impact on some of those kids.”
Coach Larson’s role as genie will continue for as long as the MVHS Class of 2020 still has wishes to grant.
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