For a group of Derry teens, a promise is a promise, whatever unforeseen events get in the way.
In 2000, Michele Thomas and her second-graders planted a crabapple tree outside Grandview Elementary School. The class promised each other they would stay in school and meet at the tree when they graduated from Derry Area Senior High School this year.
"I kept in touch through the years," Thomas said, "and every time they saw me they would say, 'Mrs. Thomas, are you still meeting us by the tree?' "
They called it "Mrs. Thomas' promise," she said.
This month, the class planned to fulfill that promise, heading back to Grandview after a commencement rehearsal to meet at the tree, which in a decade had grown 10 feet tall, with a spreading canopy.
But when the students arrived, they found only a stump.
The day before the reunion, the tree had fallen victim to Grandview's ongoing renovation when a construction worker had chopped it down.
"Most of the girls at least were tearing up, because Mrs. Thomas was tearing up," said Emily Rager, 18, who organized the reunion with classmate Ryan Harr.
Despite their sadness about the tree, the group, which included 16 of the 20 second-graders, cheered up as they reminisced.
"There were all these little rhymes Mrs. Thomas taught us," said Rager. "Before you take a test, you're supposed to say, 'I like myself! I like myself!' I was surprised by how many of us still do that."
Superintendent Roberta McCahan said that another tree would likely be planted in recognition of the class once renovations are complete in August 2011. She said it was one of several trees planted in memory of classes or individuals that had been felled to make way for construction.
"We do definitely want to do something, because we do recognize the significance of the tree," she said.
The class will meet again in 10 years, said Rager, and by then the new tree should be as big as the old one was.
