Anyone listening to the radio around Christmastime 1993 would have heard me singing about angels. As part of the group Alabama, I was proud of our hit “Angels Among Us.”<\/p>\n
I got hundreds of letters about that song over the years, and I cherished every one. From time to time, I sit at my desk, surrounded by records framed on the walls, and read them.<\/p>\n
“This song is a blessing,” one woman wrote. “I truly believe there are angels among us!” I believed it too. In fact, if it wasn’t for one of those angels on earth, I would have had a very different life.<\/p>\n
Back home in rural Alabama, none of the kids I knew finished high school. When you were struggling to make ends meet day to day it was hard to imagine your life being anything else.<\/p>\n
My junior high teachers said a degree would help me get a good job, but my daddy needed my help on the farm now. I dropped out of school.<\/p>\n
A year later I returned—but not as a student. After a day working in the fields, I put in a couple hours doing janitorial work. If any of the teachers or staff thought it was odd, they didn’t say so. Except Mrs. Ellis.<\/p>\n
Reading over my letter, I remembered the day the principal confronted me while I was sweeping up. I caught sight of her bright red hair as she marched over to me. “Owen,” she said in her scratchy voice. Why would a straight-A student drop out before high school?”<\/p>\n
All my good reasons for dropping out disappeared at the sight of Mrs. Ellis. “I don’t know,” I mumbled.<\/p>\n
“As an educator, wasted potential offends my sensibilities,” she said. “It’s about time you went back.”<\/p>\n
And juggle farm work with my studies? Besides, I’d been away for over a year. I could never catch up!<\/p>\n
“I’ll have your transcript tomorrow,” she said. “Take it to Fort Payne High School and get enrolled.”<\/p>\n
I leaned back in my desk chair and looked around. Gold and platinum records lined the walls. It made me think of a different office—the principal’s at Fort Payne High. I stood in front of his desk watching him go over my transcript, a college degree framed on the wall behind him.<\/p>\n
“Look, son, however well you think you did in junior high,” he said, eyeing my farm clothes with suspicion, “you’re too far behind to catch up now. Go back to the fields.”<\/p>\n
I thanked him for his time and went to my janitor’s job. I tried<\/em>, I thought as I washed the floor. School just wasn’t meant for guys like me.<\/p>\n “Owen!” Mrs. Ellis came marching down the hall. “You’re supposed to be in high school.”<\/p>\n When I told her what the principal said her face got as red as her hair. “Follow me!”<\/p>\n A minute later I was in yet another principal’s office, Mrs. Ellis’s, only this time I wasn’t the one getting yelled at. Mrs. Ellis was willing to fight for me in a way no other teacher had. “You want that transcript sent registered mail, you’ll have it!” she said, slamming down the phone.<\/p>\n The principal had to let me into the high school, but he didn’t like it. “If I see you in my office even once,” he told me when I showed up for my first day, “it will be your last day at Fort Payne High.”<\/p>\n As I opened another letter, I hummed “Angels Among Us” to myself. “I believe there are angels among us…to show us how to live…to guide us with a light of love.”<\/p>\n Mrs. Ellis had surely done that for me. Even after I got to high school I relied on her to get me through. Like the day in math class when my teacher caught me chewing gum.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Mr. Owen,” he said. “You will expectorate your gum. And from now on, you will sit in the front row.”<\/p>\n The class snickered as I made my way to the blackboard. I wanted to run right back to the field. I was big. I was strong. I belonged there. No matter how much I loved to learn, I didn’t belong in school!<\/p>\n As I spit out my gum in the wastebasket a hundred smart remarks ran through my head. I could lay this guy out with one punch<\/em>, I thought. Sure, I’d get expelled, but who would care? Not my math teacher. Not these other kids. Not the principal—<\/p>\n Mrs. Ellis would care<\/em>, I thought. Mrs. Ellis believed in me. Quietly, I took my seat in the front row.<\/p>\n I faced an even bigger challenge in my next class. When I got there, the class bully was dangling a smaller boy out the second story window. “Pull him back in,” I ordered.<\/p>\n The other kids got quiet. “Who are you?” the bully sneered.<\/p>\n A fight would get me kicked out of school. I knew Mrs. Ellis was counting on me to graduate. But I also knew Mrs. Ellis didn’t give in to bullies. I’d seen that the day she told off the high school principal.<\/p>\n