Dear Editor:

My name is Lee Ann Hand Francik, and I am a former student of Lee Aguilar at Powell High School. My letter to you is long overdue.

I would like to relate my, and many others’ extraordinary experiences in Señor Aguilar’s Spanish classes. Many, many of us owe our abilities to speak Spanish, and to teach it, to the rigor of señor’s classes.

In Mr. Aguilar’s classes, we not only spoke Spanish, we studied, in rigorous depth, the countries, the governments, the states and capitals of Spanish-speaking countries. Our tests were written in Spanish, and we were expected to respond in correct grammar, spelling and content about the particular country we were studying. We learned to stand and sing (some well, and some off-key) the songs of Spanish-speaking countries. We were expected to stand, walk to the front of the class, pull down a map, and point to the countries and capitals of the countries of the week.

But Mr. Aguilar didn’t quit with the classroom. One summer, he loaded up five of us in his very own car, and drove us all the way to Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico, to study in their summer school, where he also taught. He arranged for each of us to live with a Mexican family, and to participate, not only in school, but in our “family’s” activities. That included eating the delicious meals the families prepared, attending our school’s dance parties and taking trips on the weekends to other outlying cities.

When I entered college at the University of Wyoming, I was granted advanced placement in Spanish classes because of my background. I went on to study for a master’s degree with honors because of Mr. Aguilar’s influence.

Lee Ann Hand-Francik

Powell High School Class of 1968

Cody