In 1999, he wrote an article for the local newspaper about that day, about what Wayne taught him, and about spending 30 years passing on those lessons. The headline read: “The Day Duke Taught Me Everyone Matters.”
Writes:
“I was eight years old when John Wayne knelt beside my desk and told me I was nobody. Now I’m 56. I’ve taught hundreds of students, and I tell each one what Duke told me: You are Americans. That’s everyone. It doesn’t matter where you live or who you are.”
You matter.”
That’s the lesson John Wayne taught 12 children at a school in Montana. And it’s the lesson I’ve taught ever since.
The article was published only once, with limited circulation. Most people never saw it, but the 12 students from that day did. They are now adults, scattered across the country. Different lives, different careers, but they all remember. They remember the projector arriving, the movies, the letter, and the day a movie star drove 80 miles on his day off to spend three hours with 12 children who thought they didn’t matter.
The photograph from that day still exists. One of the students kept it: Sarah, the little girl with blonde braids who called Wayne the bravest cowboy. She kept it for 60 years, framed it, hung it in her house, and showed it to her children and grandchildren. In the photo, 12 children are standing in front of a small schoolhouse. Margaret is on the left. John Wayne is on the right. He’s wearing a work shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots; it’s not a costume, just his clothes. His hand is on Tommy’s shoulder.
Tommy smiles. Everyone smiles.
Below, someone wrote in ink: “The day we learned we mattered.” March 1961.
