How do we become who we are?

It’s tough to say sometimes, but I’m convinced you can trace my path to Mrs. Zimmerman.

My family and I had moved to the U.S. from Greece, then hopscotched around the country, and though we’d been in America for years, I was still an awkward girl with a funny name whose backyard occasionally contained grazing sheep awaiting their Easter Sunday fate.

But one spring day at Jean Gordon Elementary School, my teacher, Mrs. Zimmerman, handed me a flyer for an essay contest. The winner would join other Louisiana children in covering the Republican National Convention, which was to be held in New Orleans later that year, for the Children’s Express, a nonprofit news agency that used kid reporters, and adult and teen editors.

“I think you’d do well,” she said.

After my essay was chosen from hundreds of others to move on, my mom drove me to a hotel, where representatives from Children’s Express would interview me and the other finalists and choose who would go to the convention.

I remember being scared, not understanding what the adults in the room wanted to see. Mrs. Zimmerman had told me to be myself, but I didn’t know what that meant, either.

When I was picked to be on the team covering the three-day event, I was almost sick with joy. Four years earlier, I’d cried to my parents, telling them I was afraid that Ronald Reagan wouldn’t be reelected.

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” my mom had said.

The 1988 election was different: George H.W. Bush was running against Michael Dukakis, and Dukakis was Greek. This, though, was more than politics, for me and for my parents.

On the first day of the GOP convention, I wore my church clothes, the best ones I owned. The other kids were as nervous, and as smart. At first, we had to be encouraged to talk to anyone, but soon enough, we were running toward politicians to pepper them with questions.

Eventually, we found one they all loved to answer:

“What do you think about the Republican National Convention being held in New Orleans?”

It gave them a chance to kiss up to Louisianans and to the powerful state politicians who ran the show. And if they took long enough to answer, it also gave the adult journalists from NBC and the Times-Picayune the chance to notice them humoring a crowd of grubby children.

Former football player Jack Kemp was the only one who told us to scram.

At the time I thought he was just a jerk, but in retrospect, he might have still been sore that he’d gotten his butt whupped so bad by the eventual nominee.

One night, we were invited to a special reception at the governor’s mansion. I tasted turtle soup (which I liked) and caviar (which I did not).

Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards caught sight of the crowd of kids raiding the buffet table in his house and pulled us over for a special “press conference” with him. The hot lights of TV cameras shone on us as he answered every question we could think of. He acted as if our stock question was the most novel, most intriguing one he’d ever been asked. At the end, he gathered us in for a photo.

Edwards was a lame duck in 1988, but he sure wasn’t acting like one. Three years later, Edwards ran again for governor, against someone named David Duke. Edwards said that he and former KKK grand wizard had only one thing in common:

“We’re both wizards under the sheets.”

Though Edwards eventually went to prison on a racketeering conviction, his star burned bright in Louisiana for decades.

And during that convention, I started my own journey toward becoming a journalist and a writer, a path from which I’ve never detoured.

Mrs. Zimmerman did that for me. She was the best kind of teacher, a jetpack propelling you to heights you didn’t know you could reach.

I didn’t know to thank her back then because I didn’t know what I would be. She died decades before I would realize how important she was.

But I can be a little woo-woo at times. And I think that maybe she can still hear me now, even though she’s among the stars.

So, thank you, Mrs. Zimmerman, for teaching me what I can be, and helping me become what I am. I hope you were proud of who you became, too.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

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