Former East Newton drama teacher to appear on Days of Our Lives Friday

(The following is my column for this week's Newton County News.)

I was lucky during my time attending East Newton High School to have a number of excellent teachers, many of whom I have written about in previous columns.

One who always ranked at the top of my list was Mrs. Janice Matthews, who was hired to be the high school speech and drama teacher prior to the 1971-72 school year. She was a redheaded ball of fire and unlike anything I had ever seen in a teacher to that point.

Though she was in her early 40s at that time, she had the energy and drive of someone two decades younger and I was lucky enough to have her for two classes that year, speech and English.

It was early in the year when Mrs. Matthews helped me with a speech impediment that had affected me for the first 15 years of my life- I could not pronounce the "th" sound as in thick, thin, or Thursday. I said all of those words as if they started with an F sound. And though this impediment did not make me a continual object of ridicule, it did hurt on those occasions when people laughed at the way I talked.

It did not take long for Mrs. Matthews to catch on to the problem, since I could not say her last name correctly. She took me directly to the school's speech therapist (a position that had just been added that year, and one I could not pronounce), and within 20 minutes the problem others had tried to help me with for years vanished.

From there, things got better. I loved the speech class and was soon talked into competing on the speech team, something which would not have been possible just a few months earlier.

When spring rolled around, Mrs. Matthews announced that East Newton High School was holding its first-ever musical, the Cole Porter classic "Anything Goes."

There was an excitement about it at the school, but initially, that excitement did not extend to me. I thought I could do the singing, and I was sure I could do the acting, but I knew I was no dancer, so I had no intention of trying out. That was not acceptable to Mrs. Matthews.

Using her considerable gifts of persuasion, she talked me into trying out. The acting part of the tryout was easy, but the singing did not go as well as I had anticipated. After I sang one line of one song, the musical director of the play (another teacher) said, "That boy is not singing in this play."

The remark was made in front of a number of my fellow students and I was mortified. I had no illusions about being a great singer, but I thought I could at least carry a tune. I figured that was it for the high school musical.

I was told later that Mrs. Matthews did not intend to settle for anyone else for the role of Moonface Martin, Public Enemy Number Thirteen, and she fought to get the role for me. Though I had to talk my songs in Rex Harrison fashion, the play was a success and I had a great time. It was a wonderful experience and the teachers who handled the direction of "Anything Goes," play a major role in my teaching nearly 40 years later.

From Mrs. Matthews, I learned to treat each day with enthusiasm and to work to bring out the potential in my students. From the other teacher, I learned to never say or do anything that would crush someone's spirit as much as she crushed mine that day.

During the 1972-73 school year, I took speech and drama classes from Mrs. Matthews and once again appeared in the play, this time a drama, "Little Moon of Alban," playing an Irish Catholic priest.

After that year, Mrs. Matthews left, taking a position at Kickapoo High School in Springfield. Though she was no longer our teacher, those of us who were still in drama during the 1973-74 school year, still worked to make her proud of us. Becky Hildebrand and I decided to do a dramatic duet acting rendition of the Pulitzer Prize winning play "J. B." because we knew it was one of Mrs. Matthews' favorites and one of my biggest thrills in high school was qualifying for state at the district speech tournament in Springfield, with Mrs. Matthews making it a point to watch us perform.


Though Mrs. Matthews, now Janice Johnson, has been retired from teaching for several years, she has not lost any of her enthusiasm and zest for life. She now lives in California, has continued performing in the theatre and from time to time has landed television roles. This Friday, she will appear on the NBC soap opera "Days of Our Lives," in the role of Mrs. Martin.

I will be in the classroom when the program airs, but I intend to tape it and I am looking forward to watching my former teacher in action.

And I sincerely hope that years from now when I am no longer in the classroom that some student will be able to say that I had the same kind of positive impact on his or her life as Mrs. Matthews has had on mine.