For a local soldier, there’s nothing like letters from home

By Staff
Army officer in Iraq befriends third graders
Clif Knight, Hartselle Enquirer
John Mark Waynick’s third graders at Barkley Bridge Elementary School had good reason to flash big smiles and jump up and down on Monday after each received a personal letter from a U.S. Army officer stationed in Iraq.
Three weeks earlier, each of the 19 students wrote a personal letter to Capt. “Toi” Stubbs, a Hartselle native who is serving with the 28th Combat Support Hospital in northern Iraq. Their expectations were a response to the class as a whole, not individually written letters.
What they received were individualized letters.
Samantha “Sam” Drake added, “I told him I like to sing and he wrote back that he’s trying to learn how to play a harmonica.”
Breanna Shaddrix chimed in, “He’s got an American bulldog named ‘Hutch.’”
Waynick said the idea of writing to Stubbs as a class project came from Glenda Greene, a grandmother of Wilson Greene, one of his students.
Waynick said he and the students decided to change that.
When asked what they got out of the project several students were quick to offer comments.