Etowah Elementary Celebrates Grandparents

On Friday at Etowah Elementary, David Byrd sat down to lunch with his granddaughter in a cafeteria that hadn’t existed when he was last at the school. The second grade’s “Grandparents Day” at Etowah had Byrd reminiscing about his old elementary days, back when Etowah was both an elementary and a high school.

“This was back in the 50s,” Byrd said.

Lilly B., Byrd’s granddaughter and a 2nd-grader at Etowah, proudly added, “Almost my entire family went to this school.”

Lilly and her fellow second grade classmates had invited their grandparents to eat lunch with them Friday as part of the school’s annual Grandparents Day celebration, which also included tours of the students’ classrooms and special poetry readings.

Excited to surprise both his maternal and paternal grandmother with a poem he wrote about loving his grandparents, Bryan B. whispered about the afternoon’s activities in the cafeteria at lunch. He said he enjoyed having both of his grandmothers join him at school, and squeezed in between them for a photo.

“She’s MeeMaw,” said Barbara Greene, pointing to Bryan’s other grandmother, Suzie Brown. Bryan said he calls Greene “Other Mom,” and Brown said, “She really is.”

On the way to their classrooms to read their short poems about grandparents, the second grade students stopped to point out their artwork and writing assignments decorating the halls.

Karla Rayside said she loves being invited to the school to see what her grandson, Mason T., is doing in class. She had attended Grandparent’s Day last year with her other grandson and said she’d been looking forward to this year’s event.

“I think (Etowah Elementary) is very good with family interaction,” she said.

 – By Molly McGowan Gorsuch
Public Information Officer