As a senior, I won a national journalism writing award from the National Federation of Press Women for my editorial denouncing the Supreme Court’s Hazelwood decision that gave school administrators more freedom to censor student publications. Had I not been free to write about any subject I wanted under Sugi’s tutelage, I would not have been so passionate in my response to that court decision. She taught me to stick up for my rights, to never be afraid to be my unique self, and to never sell myself short.

She used to yell at me in newspaper class for sitting around painting my nails when we were between deadlines, and the other day I found myself yelling at three of my yearbook girls for doing the same thing (except they were doing it while we were on deadline). I had to stop and laugh, as I could hear U’s voice in my head. Another great story from my senior year involved her throwing erasers at me as I ducked under a table in her room, and the new juniors on Paolite staff looked on in horror. Jennifer Babcock, co-editor of the paper with me, and I had spent all day in the darkroom trying to make a girls basketball photo come out just a little better. Sugi had pulled us out of almost every other class to keep working on the photo. Unfortunately, the photographer had not done a great job with the settings on the camera, and the lighting was not good. We simply could do no more to make the photo clearer, and after consulting with photo expert Janet Perry, we decided we had done all we could; Mrs. U. was not happy about that. During newspaper class at the end of the day, Janet stuck her head in Sugi’s room to ask a question, and Sugi (unwilling to believe we had already consulted Janet) said to her, “Can you help them make that picture look better?” Janet replied, “I already helped them earlier today. It’s as good as it’s going to get.” Well….I looked up from the table where Gary Spear and I were going over a story and said, “I told you so!” A split second later, the erasers started flying at my head, while she yelled, “Don’t you tell me ‘I told you so.’ I’ll tell you who told you so.” Gary and I hid under the table and convulsed in laughter. Jennifer was across the room doubled over laughing, but all the new Paolite staffers stopped in their tracks, afraid to move. They didn’t know Sugi well enough yet to know whether they should laugh or be afraid.

I spent hours at her house editing the paper or just hanging out to talk. Her door was, and is, always open. I’m blessed to call her a mentor and a friend. She deserves every accolade that comes her way.

Patty Sanders Loudin, PHS 1974

When I was finally given the privilege of sitting in her classroom, though, I quickly forgot that there was a giant orange snake suspended from the ceiling, a stuffed armadillo on the shelf in the corner, and a few tall, metal spikes on the front desk on which stacks of students’ written assignments were impaled. Mrs. U, sitting cross-legged on a stool on one side of the classroom and talking about how to write a newspaper story, easily held my attention and that of every other student in the room. It was the first time I had heard her teach, and she went about it in a way that was different than any other teacher I’d ever had.

Her thoughtful, conversational style combined gentle humor and a quick wit with years and years of knowledge and experience. She was able to help teenagers understand and appreciate literature. More than that, she somehow inspired us want to understand and appreciate what we were reading. Now, more than twenty years after I first sat in her classroom, I am still amazed by Sugi’s ability to relate so well to her students. With her unassuming, nonjudgmental way, it was almost as if she was one of us. She was, and still is, timeless.

What impressed me most of all about Sugi, though, was that she was the first person I’d ever met who had written a book. She was an author, something that I one day hoped to become. I read her beautiful autobiographical novel, Don’t Cry Chiisai, Don’t Cry, for the first time that year. Learning about her early life and her struggle to marry and raise a family in an era of intense racial prejudice further reinforced for me what an extraordinary person she was.

I continued to get to know Sugi during my senior year at PHS, when she was my teacher for college-credit English. We also spent long hours after school working on The Paolite. After I left for college, Sugi and I kept in close touch. We usually talked on the phone every week or two, and I saw her almost every time I came home for a visit. Even though I started college with the intention of becoming a doctor, our conversations tended to focus mostly on writing and literature. I’d tell her what I was reading in my humanities classes, and she’d share with me the poetry she’d most recently asked her class to interpret. When I finally followed my heart and changed my major from biology to English a few years later, I don’t think she was very surprised.

Today, Sugi and I still keep in touch. I love her dearly and consider her to be one of my closest friends. She was one of my “test readers” for my first novel, The Mill River Recluse, which went on to appear on the New York Times bestseller list for 28 weeks and will be published in six foreign countries. There is a dedication to Sugi printed at the front of the book. Quite simply, without having had her as a teacher, role model, and friend, and without her support and encouragement as I attempted to follow in her footsteps, I do not think I would have found success as a writer.

I am but one of thousands of people whose lives have been touched and enriched by Ruth Uyesugi. Her influence on PHS and the entire community of Paoli has been profound. Naming the school’s new auditorium in her honor is a fitting tribute to all that she has given and continues to give.

Darcie Chan
Paolite Editor 1991