One of my good friends, Mary K Morris, was Storm Reid’s Kindergarten teacher at Chesnut Charter Elementary in Dunwoody. When Mary K mentioned this to me a few weeks ago, I knew I had to pass it along to Atlanta’s Disney PR team.
They followed up by arranging a visit from Storm to Chesnut and invited me to come along for the day!
Storm, now in
9th grade and taught at home or on filming locations by tutors, was welcomed with open arms this morning by Chesnut students and faculty. Principal Veronica Williams thanked me over and over again and simply beamed with pride for their special alumnus.
Storm was accompanied by her parents and they all seemed so happy to be back at Chesnut. They hugged former teachers and pointed out old classrooms. Storm spent the first part of the morning being interviewed by the press. Shortly afterward she spoke at an assembly filled with students in 2nd-5th grades. However, I did see a small group of very excited first graders peek their heads in for a moment.
Storm presented the school with 150 various book versions of A Wrinkle in Time for their Media Center. She also encouraged the youngsters to follow their dreams and surround themselves by people who support them. She mentioned starting her career at the age of 3 because SHE insisted she wanted to be an actress….not her parents. Her Dad (who still lives in Atlanta) told me that she LOVED Arthur on PBS when she was little and memorized entire episodes when she was just a pre-schooler!
I overheard her telling someone when she comes back from California to Atlanta to visit her dad, two places she always wants to go are: Waffle House and Zaxby’s. I laughed and told her that if she were in 9th grade at Dunwoody High, she would know that Waffle House is somewhat of a “hangout” for DHS students. She thought that was hilarious….and then she told me she has two cousins at DHS and I happen to have watched one of them play basketball numerous times.
I’ll end by saying that she seems to be a lovely girl. She was gracious and well mannered and truly excited to be back at her old school. I heard her say “Yes ma’am” and “y’all” about 100 times in an hour and she referred to Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon as “Mrs. Oprah and Mrs. Reese”. You can take a girl out of the south but you can’t take the southern manners out of the girl!
I can’t wait to see the movie…. to be released to the public on 3/9…. but I get to see it with Mary K tomorrow!!!!
