4 . The person who set the course of my life was a school teacher named Marjorie Hurd. When I stepped off a ship in New York Harbor in 1949, I was a nine-year-old war refugee, who had lost his mother and was coming to live with the father he did not know. My mother, Eleni Gatzoyiannis, had been imprisoned and shot for sending my sisters and me to freedom.

I was thirteen years old when I entered Chandler Junior High. Shortly after I arrived, I was told to select a hobby to pursue during “club hours.” The idea of hobbies and clubs made no sense to my immigrant ears, but I decided to follow the prettiest girl in my class. She led me into the presence of Miss Hurd, the school newspaper adviser and English teacher.

A tough woman with salt-and-pepper hair and determined eyes, Miss Hurd had no patience with lazy bones. She drilled us in grammar,assigned stories for us to read and discuss, and eventually taught us how to put out a newspaper. Her introduction to the literary wealth of Greece gave me a new perspective on my war-torn homeland, making me proud of my origins. Her efforts inspired me to understand the logic and structure of the English language. Owing to her inspiration, during my next twenty-five years, I became a journalist by profession.

Miss Hurd retired at the age of 62. By then, she had taught for a total of 41 years. Even after her retirement, she continually made a project of unwilling students in whom she spied a spark of potential. The students were mainly from the most troubled homes, yet she alternately bullied and charmed them with her own special brand of tough love, until the spark caught fire.

Miss Hurd was the one who directed my grief and pain into writing. But for Miss Hurd, I wouldn’t have become a reporter. She was the catalyst that sent me into journalism and indirectly caused all the good things that came after.