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| Mrs. Shepherd (left) |
Mrs. Shepherd was a frequent substitute teacher at Hillcrest Jr. High. I walked into many classrooms to find, with surprise, her standing there waiting for the bell to ring. I instantly knew I would spend the next hour listening to the deepest Southern accent of any person I knew. She was a kindly soul with a no nonsense exterior, and she contributed to my life in one big way: After hearing her talk, I swore that I would never, ever have such an accent -- or anything close to it.
One year, Mrs. Shepherd invited students for a picnic or some kind of weekend get together at her house. As I recall, it was a big old white two-story house out in the country, down a dirt road from Highway 71 before it reached Lake Fayetteville. As the afternoon progressed, a few of us explored the woods around her house and end up traipsing through the trees all the way to the shores of the Lake.
The location of her house, in about 1958, was behind the area where a small shopping center (Barnes and Noble) is now located. If you drive on the road behind the Shopping Center will can turn off onto Shepherd Lane, which is lined with apartments.
