By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – When Darlene Letourneau took in 12 extra third-graders this winter, her principal said it was temporary.

Letourneau knew she’d never let them go.

They were the students of her best friend, a fellow teacher who died suddenly of heart failure in March. After teaching together for 24 years, taking her kids felt natural.

“With everything that’s happened, I just grabbed ahold of them and bonded with them more than usual,” Letourneau said.

When Sharon Dawley died unexpectedly, students and teachers leaned on one another. They patched squares of Dawley’s old clothes to form a memorial quilt. They reminisced about her holiday celebrations and talked about her lessons.

In time, they became cohesive, cooperative. A class.

It took three months for Letourneau and her kids to say goodbye to Dawley. On Friday, they had to say goodbye to one another.

For the Martel Elementary School third grade, every event has been bittersweet this year. Even the last day of school.

Said 9-year-old Conor O’Malley, who is moving, “It’s kind of hard because I’m never going to see my friends again. Ever.”

Memories

On Friday, the two dozen third-graders spent the morning in subdued celebration. While the other kids whooped through the halls, Letourneau’s class made cards for incoming third-graders.

They’d been behaving badly and “bouncing off the walls” earlier in the week, Letourneau said. She called it separation anxiety.

But for a half-hour Friday, the 8- and 9-year-olds quietly swapped ideas, shared crayons, helped each other with spelling.

When they happened on a Dawley topic – her rock collection or one of her favorite sayings – they paused mid-drawing to talk.

“She used idioms, sayings to talk to us, and she showed us stuff little by little so we’d understand,” said 8-year-old Shelby Roux, one of Dawley’s students who, for months, carried a newspaper story about her teacher in her backpack.

Most of the students learned over a mid-March weekend that Dawley had died at home. They called the following Monday “weird.”

“I always came in early and I always saw Mrs. Dawley and Mrs. Letourneau walking together,” Conor said. “Then I just saw Mrs. Letourneau alone.”

Dawley’s 12 students joined Letourneau’s 11 that day, adding chairs to double desks. There were personality conflicts. Some kids acted out. But the two classes, which had worked together before, were happy to have each other.

“We were two groups. Now we’re the same class,” said 9-year-old Jordan Hunt, who was one of Letourneau’s original 11.

Throughout Friday, as the kids finished their cards and went through last-day routines, Dawley’s name kept popping up.

“I still think about her at night,” 9-year-old Casey McBrine told a classmate.

Letourneau’s classroom is next to Dawley’s dark, empty room. The memorial quilt hung outside the door. The last of Dawley’s shamrock lollipops sat on Letourneau’s desk, waiting for the winners of the final spelling bee and math contest.

Reminders of her were everywhere.

Letourneau credited those mementos, and Dawley herself, for turning the two classes into one.

“I truly believe she’s in here sometimes, nudging them,” Letourneau said.

In the fall Letourneau will have another batch of third-graders. A new teacher will move into Dawley’s empty room.

Letourneau and her kids won’t be a class anymore.

But their bond, they said, will remain.