By Alandra Johnson • The Bulletin

In just a few short days, most local students will head off for their first day of school. Some kids will be excited, some nervous, some indifferent. The first day of school offers a chance to start over, make a good first impression and create friendships. The following stories about the first day of school were written by local community members who, for a variety of reasons, found their first day of school memorable.

Author: Jodie Utter, 34, of Bend

Written about her daughter, Hallie Utter, now 7, at Elk Meadow Elementary School in Bend

We will always remember our daughter Hallie’s first day of kindergarten two years ago. Our sweet, smart little girl was always very “slow to warm up” in social situations, that is if she was willing to participate at all. She didn’t enjoy being in big crowds of people. She wouldn’t play soccer with the other 3-year-olds at the indoor sports center. We made it as far as the parking lot to her first gymnastics lesson, but she wouldn’t get out of the car. We left in the middle of her first ballet class with tears streaming down her face because she was too terrified to teeter on her toes with the other girls. You name it, we tried it, but she just seemed to shrink in every social activity we braved. From the time she was tiny she hated being dropped off in the nursery at church. We attended Mothers of Preschoolers together and her anxiety every time I took her to the children’s classroom was so nerve-racking I almost stopped going. But I persevered and hoped for a breakthrough for her for over five years. We never really had one, and the first day of school loomed.

Then she entered Mrs. Naffziger’s kindergarten class at Elk Meadow Elementary School. Given her track record, we didn’t know what to expect. Well actually, that’s not true, we expected tears, clinging, hyperventilating or even a swing or kick aimed at the teacher. Not only did the first day go off without a hitch, but so did the next two years and we aren’t looking back! Literally overnight Hallie bloomed into a busy, bustling, talkative, smiling social butterfly.

She loved school, her teacher, her friends. She was all of the sudden happy to be dropped off in Sunday school. She was brave, excited and up for anything and everything it seemed. Within a year’s time she even performed onstage in the front row in the Christmas program at church. We were amazed and at some point we finally exhaled.

Thank you, Mrs. Naffziger, for that miraculous first day as well as all the others. Hallie still talks about you all the time and we will forever have fond memories of Hallie’s first day of school in your care.

Author: Vicie Nagy, 79, of Redmond

Written about her first day of school at Caudle School in Norwood, Mo.

It was a day in early September. I headed down a country road for my first day of school. Caudle School was about a mile straight down the road from home. I had a new lunch pail and a tablet. I was wearing a print dress made from a flour sack, and new shoes. It was exciting to finally be a first-grader!

I arrived at school and hung around the door until the teacher came and asked if I was a new student and invited me into the classroom.

Soon, all five first-graders were seated and were told to take our tablets and write our names. Dad had taught me to write my name so I proudly took my big pencil and began. The teacher hurried to my side and moved my pencil from my left hand to the “right” hand. I hesitated a minute, then put the pencil back in my “right” hand which was my left hand. I wrote my name. Teacher suspected I didn’t know how to spell it, as she had never seen the name Vicie before. She said nothing.

We received our new readers and were told to open to the first page. I timidly raised my hand and teary eyed, announced that I couldn’t read.

At recess the teacher said to go to the toilet which was a wooden building away from the schoolroom. I climbed up onto the platform on my knees.

Finally school was over. I grabbed my reader and lunchbox and headed for home. Mom asked me how my first day of school went. I shrugged and said it was okay.

That was 1933. I was 5 years old.

Author: Christy Smith, of Bend

Written about her son, Nick Smith, when he entered kindergarten at Fairview Elementary in Fairview, Ore. Nick is now 14 and entering Mountain View High School in Bend.

When my son, Nick Smith, was 5 and starting his first day of kindergarten at Fairview Elementary in Fairview, Ore., I was hesitant about putting him on the school bus. He insisted and I then felt a little more at ease when I saw several other neighbor kids and their moms at the bus stop. He arrived at the school safely (after I called them repeatedly to ask if he was OK) and was to take the bus home. When I arrived at our bus stop, several of the moms were there and we were joking around thinking that it would be funny if one of our children missed the bus. Well, the bus came and Nick was no where to be found. I felt my heart sink. The other parents were apologetic for their joke earlier. I told the bus driver and apparently he not only got on the wrong bus, he fell asleep on the wrong bus as well. Our bus driver alerted every bus in the area and they found him within minutes, it felt like an eternity. I was a little angry at whom ever put him on the wrong bus, but understand the chaos of hundreds of children who want to go home.

Author: Michael McDonald, 42, of Bend

Written about his first day of school as a teacher at South Salem High School (where he also attended high school) in 1991. He is now a vice principal at Summit High School in Bend.

My first day of student teaching was a Monday in early February of 1991. It was a group of senior AP students starting their last semester of high school. As every new teacher is, I was focused on following my plan. Outlined on the paper in front of me, my plan was going to result in the most enriched 55 minutes of English class these kids had ever seen.

I was there because my own teachers had made the classroom over into whatever venue they wanted: laboratory, lectern, pulpit, bench. They used the autonomy of the classroom like a changing stage set and were masters of their craft. I was there to imitate them and wanted badly to reach every student sitting in the room.

I would have to wait, years actually, for such professional ease and grace. At that moment, it was as if someone had tied my shoelaces together and pushed me out into traffic. I was introducing the students to English Romantic poetry. The lesson commenced with a carefully delivered opening lecture topped with an academic factoid transitioning to one of my favorite poems. Once there, I planned to instill in them an even deeper love of this piece and my career would be off to its destined glory.

But before I could get to the poem, a student raised his hand and told me I was wrong. You know this student (or maybe you were this student), the smartest, most bored kid in class, with a satchel of words-as-knives to kill lesser minds and egos. I had failed to prepare for his antics and it stopped the momentum. As a new teacher, momentum is your only friend and once it is gone, it is gone, and mine had left the country. Suddenly, I was in hostile territory and my primal fight or flight mechanism took control. If you have experienced this you know that your language and reasoning capabilities succumb to the voice in your head screaming, “Run! Run! Run!” You sweat in all the wrong places, lose most of your focused vision, and feel like any other animal about to be eaten: scared, sick and slow.

As cornered prey would, I left the room. I managed to give a page number and a lame set of instructions, but that was it. I slipped out in the hall to hyperventilate and reconsider my professional choice. Eventually, after I stopped sweating, reason and humility replaced instinct and I returned to the kids, embarrassed but intact. For weeks and months we survived my internship and later I would get my first job at that same school.

Ask any teacher and they will tell you how the first minute jitters never leave. We love the kids, and we love the potential and promise that overflows in those first seconds, of the first class, of the first day.

Author: Kirk Benson, 42, of Slidell, La.

Written about his experience as a fourth-grader at R.E. Jewell School in Bend in 1974.

I grew up in Bend, a place I still call home, despite not having lived there in decades. I lived south of town, off Brosterhous Road, and the elementary school we attended in the early 1970s was Bear Creek Elementary School. The school district initiated plans to build a new school, R.E. Jewell Elementary, which would take a couple years. During the 1972-73 school year, the students destined to attend Jewell School, attended Yew Lane Elementary School, which no longer exists today. Yew Lane was located on Second Street, near Wilson Avenue. I believe they park school buses there now. During the 1973-74 school year, the “Jewell Kids” attended Reid-Thompson School. We actually had our classrooms in the historic Reid School, on Wall Street, but ate lunch and had recess across the street at Thompson Elementary School. In September 1974, R.E. Jewell School was opened when I was in fourth grade. Jewell School was a modern academic institution that utilized “pods” instead of classrooms. I was in the Blue Pod, which consisted of students in fourth, fifth and sixth grades. The Blue Pod teachers were Mrs. Barbara Hendricks, Mr. Arlie Seems and Mrs. Connie Rodda (don’t ask me how I remember that). There were other pods too; Red, Yellow, Green, Pink and Rainbow. The pods surrounded the Learning Center, a cool name for the library.

Jewell School was a great school and I felt very special being part of the inaugural group of students to attend it. I last visited Bend in July 2006, with my own children, and it was great to show them where I attended school for fourth, fifth and sixth grades so long ago.

Author: Merrianne Metzger, of Bend

Written about her first day of school in Bandon, Ore. in 1951

In 1951, I was about to start first grade in a small country school near Bandon, Ore. I had a new Roy Rogers lunch pail with matching thermos and my mother’s promise to let me choose my school clothes.

I chose the following items from the Golden Rule Department Store: Two plaid cowboy shirts, overalls, (just like my dairy farmer dad’s) and a pair of black Acme cowboy boots with silver trim.

Mom looked dubious. “You’re sure about this Annie? If you didn’t get boots, you could get two dresses.” I was adamant. “Monkey bars.” I said. “If I wear a dress they’ll see my panties. Dresses are for church.” Mom gave up, only saying, “Once you wear them they can’t go back.”

I put a toy watch and two yellow pencils in the bib of my overalls. I felt so snazzy; I couldn’t wait for school to start the next day.

Never had a day starting with such anticipation held such disappointment. Mom saw my face the minute I walked in the door. “I’m not going back,” I announced grimly before she could say a word. “The kids said that girls don’t wear overalls.”

“Ah,” mom said sadly, “They teased you.”

I nodded and looked down at my boots knowing I wouldn’t trade them for dresses even if I could. “It’s okay, Mom. I like being home with you.”

“Oh, Annie. You know you have to go back tomorrow. Look in your closet and decide what to wear.”

The next day found me galloping down our county road to school in an old pink dress with a sash of white, summer shorts underneath and shiny black boots on my feet. No one made fun of me and I found sashes were perfect as reins for playing “horses” at recess.

Author: Karey Conli, 77, of Bend

Written about her son Carl, who attended Madison Grammar School in San Gabriel, Calif.

Our 5-year-old son was a precocious young fellow and since he was the oldest of our two sons, he was eagerly looking forward to being in kindergarten. When the day arrived he couldn’t get up fast enough to get ready for his first day of school. He was quiet as we walked the block and a half to school. When the morning session was over I was waiting for him at the gate. As we walked home he was excited about his day and talked about all that went on.

The next morning I went to his room to wake him up for his second day at kindergarten. He stretched and rolled around his bed then suddenly he was quiet! He looked at me seriously and exclaimed, “But Mom, I went yesterday, remember?”