Rosemary Pennyfeather of Perth Amboy Catholic School retired this year. She has taught art for 18 years. If we had to give out an award for a Teacher who always sent the Guardian photos and press releases whenever her students achieved local, state or national recognition, she would be the one to receive it.

Rose Pennyfeather (C) receives a Shield Award in 2016
*File Photo by Paul W. Wang

In previous editorials, we have asked teachers, administrators, and parents to submit photos of student’s achievements.

Believe it or not, a lot of those requests are submitted by people in areas that we don’t even cover. There are some newspapers who have a policy that if any schools would like their sports teams or individuals in their publications, they would have to forward the photos with captions  to them.

Rosemary Pennyfeather has done this from day one. Maybe once or twice the Guardian personally went to photograph a presentation, but 95% of the time, Mrs. Pennyfeather supplied everything to us.

I recently was talking to Mrs. Pennyfeather and she thanked me and was so grateful that I put all of her press releases and photos of her students in the paper. I just simply told her, “No, I want to thank you.”

She said that she’s going to miss all the students that were in her class and how much she loved them.

I continued to tell her that because of her guidance and love for what she did brought out the talents that she knew  that her students possessed. It’s the lessons that you taught them that encouraged them to do their best.

She told me that she is looking forward to spending more time with her grandson who lives outside of the United States. She said she always gets in trouble with him, “But it’s a good kind of trouble. The only kind of trouble that good grandparents can get away with.”

She also told me about her love of going to flea markets and yard sales. She was dismayed to see items such as varsity letters that parents or grandparents had earned being sold by their younger relatives.

Even though she graduated from St. Mary’s High School, she always hung around with the students from Perth Amboy High School. She married Wayne Pennyfeather who was on the 1968 Championship Perth Amboy Basketball Team.

Although Perth Amboy has changed since her High School Days, there is something so endearing about the town that will always be in her blood and she’ll never leave it.

So Rosemary, enjoy your retirement and still be that good bad grandparent. We’ll see you around town. I’m pretty sure the students you had over the years will remember and love  you fondly as much as you have them.

We ask that others take a page from Mrs. Pennyfeather and submit photos/stories or any important achievements of individual(s) or groups that you feel should be recognized. Thank you. C.M.