Kristin Kusmierek
Sincere heartfelt condolences to Mr. Pringle's family and friends. He was an amazing soul. I was a student at Elijah Buell in the 1970s, and his influence and actions as a principal were life-changing for me. My family was in distress during those years, and he scooped me up--as I'm sure he did for so many other young people--and provided safety, comfort, and hope. He taught a handful of us extra math lessons, teaching us some basic stats to apply at school sports events. He seemed genuinely excited to show me the large art work from my generation, still proudly resident in the stairwell when I visited the school in my early twenties, my name painted in the corner, I believe. He was so happy that I'd gone on to college--a natural outcome in my mind, but not for him and others who knew the potential impact of life's challenges--and it's not lost on me that my graduate degrees in education were, no doubt, a product, in part, of the impacts he'd made in my early years. Thank you so much, Jack Pringle, for everything. You'll live on in so many ways.
