Students at Tulsa's Thoreau Demonstration Academy have a message for their sick friend: Stay strong
By ANDREA EGER World Staff Writer on Sep 18, 2013, at 2:24 AM Updated on 9/18/13 at 3:30 AM
Local
For more than a generation, this rural community has been haunted by a mystery: What happened to a group of teens who disappeared in the early 1970s after heading to a high school football game?
The bus had two occupants, a driver and an 8-year-old girl. The driver had a suspended license, police said.
If Luis Delarosa didn't know that he was missed at Thoreau Demonstration Academy before, his classmates literally spelled it out for him Tuesday.
The 12-year-old is hospitalized because of a recurrence of leukemia, but the faculty and students at this magnet middle school in south Tulsa wanted to send him a special message of hope and encouragement.
The entire seventh-grade class gathered in the school parking lot in a drizzling rain to form a human chain of letters, L-U-I-S, while firefighters aloft in the bucket of a ladder truck captured their sentiment in photographs.
"I think he's brave," said classmate Hailyn Sandres. "He's doing all his work to try to be prepared for when he comes back. I think it's a great example for us."
Luis finished the sixth grade last year at MacArthur Elementary School, and counselor Rachel Adams said he was excited about being selected through a lottery-based admissions process to begin the seventh grade at Thoreau.
"He had done all of his homework about this school and wanted to know all about our extended day and MicroSociety," said Adams, referring to a program in which students apply what they're learning through classroom curriculum in a pretend city that is designed to be a microcosm of the real world.
Luis' recurrence of a potentially life-threatening form of cancer has kept him out of school, preparing for a bone-marrow transplant. He is completing coursework through a homebound instruction program, and teachers and students keep a physical reminder of his absence.
"His picture is on a piece of paper in all of our classrooms," said one of his classmates, Madison Dill. "To me, compassion means being caring and considerate, and everybody deserves to feel welcome and deserves a chance to have friends."
Adams, the school counselor and Luis' homebound instructor, said they want the boy and his family to know that "he has a face and a space at Thoreau and that we are waiting for him with open arms and open hearts."
Andrea Eger 918-581-8470
andrea.eger@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Standing in support
Local
For more than a generation, this rural community has been haunted by a mystery: What happened to a group of teens who disappeared in the early 1970s after heading to a high school football game?
The bus had two occupants, a driver and an 8-year-old girl. The driver had a suspended license, police said.
