Tommy McFarland

The bell rings to end American Literature class. My students gather their books laughing and jostling each other out the door.

All but Tommy McFarland.

He lags behind at the window staring out at a raw January day until the last of his classmates departs. Then he shuffles deliberately to my desk.

"Sorry about Mr. Howard's brother," he murmurs, eyes full of sympathy.

My husband's youngest brother has just passed away, and I am deeply touched by Tommy's concern. But not surprised.

A senior at Grand Island Central Catholic, Tommy McFarland has a reputation for being one of the kindest kids you could ever hope to meet. "T-Mac", as his classmates call him, is the first one to acknowledge every student and teacher in the hallway.

"He's our Simba," grins classmate Mayra Almayra. In spite of his serious purposefulness when it comes to studies, Tommy nevertheless is as funny and playful with his classmates as, well, as a lion cub.

"Tommy's got this laugh that fills up the place," says Luke Wemhoff, another classmate. "You always know when Tommy laughs because every person around him starts to erupt. There isn't a single person who's as happy and fun loving as Tommy McFarland."

Be that as it may, Tommy knows when to be serious. Deeply reverent at Thursday morning school Mass, Tommy says his faith is enormously important. He is not, he explains, one to talk about his religion, but he has no qualms about quietly saying grace before meals even in a public place.

"Father Scott Harter's really made an impact on all of us," Tommy says about GICC's school chaplain. "He's helped us understand faith isn't just something for the weekends. It's part of our every day lives."

And Tommy McFarland walks the talk. Nobody's left out or excluded in his sphere.

"T-Mac's so nice," says classmate Ben Benton, "that he invited every kid in the class to his house after Homecoming our sophomore year."

Tommy is quick to credit his family for supporting and loving and teaching him what's important. "They mean a lot to me. My mom and dad and sister are always there for me and each other."

His grandfather, the late Bob McFarland - a retired Grand Island High School public teacher who coached boys' golf at GICC for several years - was a huge influence in his grandson's life. Tommy remembers his grandfather's love for his GICC players and his three consecutive state titles in the early 2000's.

"He was such a loving man who always looked for the best in all of us," Tommy recalls. "He taught me that if you're going to do something right, you have to work hard at it."

Nobody works harder than Tommy McFarland. The boys in his class tease him about a particular Spanish class in which they sit behind Tommy and whisper noisily back and forth.

"Would you guys cut it out!" Tommy finally snaps. "I'm trying to LEARN!"

He doesn't mind the teasing. "All the kids in my class take academics seriously," he says.  "We're all looking to the future, but we're part of a family here. We look out for each other, too."

Tommy plans to attend Wesleyan University next year and hopes to study medicine. It's not hard to imagine him in a white jacket talking gently with a patient. I can see him bending solicitously and holding the hand of a small, scared child. He's compassionate and confident and reassuring.

But that kindly, good physician will have to wait a few years.

Today Tommy McFarland looks forward to his last year of high school. Today he'll joke with friends, practice hard on the football field, and maybe find the nerve to ask a girl to Homecoming.

Today, he only has to be our T-Mac.

Sam Tynan and Grace Tynan

I'm grateful for the Tynan kids. They teach me so much more than I could ever teach them.

Grace Tynan and Sam Tynan

Take "purple nurple", for instance - the act of grasping a person's nipple between the thumb and forefinger to roughly twist until it bruises.

Did not know this. Thanks to Sam and Grace, however, I'm thoroughly educated. Grace describes, in vivid detail, the numerous times during her grade school days she's inflicted this particular pain upon her brother Sam.

"The thing is," she says now, "he never fought back." She reflects more with a sense of wonder than of guilt. "Oh, he absolutely deserved everything he got," she defends herself vigorously.

Sam, one year older, grins. "Grace and my older brother Jack are the same person. They can't express their anger with words," he says. With the calculated brilliance of a typical middle child, he picks his siblings apart piece by piece, drives them crazy, then waits patiently until they physically assault him. Nothing gives Sam more satisfaction.

He and his sister laugh together. No two siblings are less alike than Sam and Grace Tynan. They clearly, however, enjoy and rely upon each other.

"She's pretty Type A," Sam teases, "and a hundred percent motivated at everything. But she's so loyal. She helps me with my homework, which is a little embarrassing, and she completely gets my sense of humor. We have all these inside jokes."

It's true that while Sam is a laid back, take-life-as-it-comes kind of kid, Grace is the model student. She arrives to English class prepared and ready for a quiz. She loves to read, checks her homework twice, and knows exactly what has to be accomplished by tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and even the day after that.

Sam? Not so much. If Sam, though, is not a perfect student, he's still enormously gifted. In my senior composition class, he reads his written assignments out loud - memoirs from grade school, middle school and high school days. I can hardly wait for the next installment.

"Sam," I tell him, "you write like Jean Shepherd." Shepherd wrote A Christmas Story. "These accounts could be published," I urge him.

He grins, embarrassed, but pleased nevertheless. It's true. Sam's descriptions of his youth as one of the "Gator Boys", his little posse of friends who attended Gates Elementary, are the highlight of my school day. He writes of pals Garrett Steinke, Tanner Staab, Nick Nolan and the Bernal brothers, and long summer afternoons romping and playing at the "Press" - the Presbyterian Church - on acres of endless green grass. Garrett and Tanner attend Central Catholic now, Nick is at GISH, and Ryan and Noah Bernal are in Ralston. Yet, the boys are still close. Sam will hold those idyllic summer days dear for the rest of his life.

But his middle and high school days at Central Catholic with old and new friends are just as important, and Sam has never lost his spirit of fun and adventure. He recalls the time in eighth grade he and Nick Nolan make up their own secret language to communicate with each other across the classroom. He remembers his big brother beating him up in football practice and secretly setting the alarms of  his friends' cell phones to go off in Mrs. Oltean's religion class.

Grace, the perfect student, is as sweet, pleasant and heaven sent as they come. She, too, has made lifelong friends at Central Catholic and relishes her own nostalgic days at school. Because of her two older brothers, she steps into a ready-made comfortable space at GICC. Not only is she familiar with the facility, but teachers already know her. Some are relieved she in no way resembles Sam. Grace, however, knows her big brother always has her back and is extremely protective of her.

"Sam acts tough," she smiles knowingly, "but he's not."

Grace will always remember trying to hide on the stage with her best pal Courtney Wilson so that they don't have to play Dodge Ball and storming the field when Sam's Crusader football team beats Wilber by one point.

"Central Catholic has been a great place to grow up," Grace reflects. "It's a place where you become close to friends and teachers for the rest of your life."

Both Grace and Sam acknowledge that Central Catholic has been important to their brother Jack and their parents Jerry and Sue Tynan. Their dad, they explain, who attended a huge school in Connecticut, wanted his kids in a smaller environment to have relationships with teachers and classmates, to participate in a multitude of activities, and to learn about their Catholic faith.

"My dad loves Central Catholic almost as much as Mr. Schumann does," Sam laughs.

He and his sister imitate their father Jerry - a much loved, wonderfully gregarious man who can talk to anybody - shaking a complete stranger's hand. Grace, the stranger, pretends to be locked in an everlasting grip.

"He doesn't let go!" Sam laughs. "He holds on until it's awkward for the other guy."

Grace giggles. "My mom says it's because he grew up back East and doesn't understand personal space boundaries."

But the kids love their father and are grateful for the importance both their parents have placed on the small, family atmosphere of Central Catholic. Because of their school, their Catholic faith has become essentially important to both of them.

"Father Scott (Harter) brought life to my Catholic faith," Sam says about GICC's school chaplain.

Grace agrees. "He makes it fun to be Catholic, and I love to listen to his homilies at school Mass. He tries to sit at a different lunch table with all the kids and answer any questions we have about Catholocism."

And because of the religion department's spring service day project, Grace discovered her love for helping animals at the Humane Society.

"That was a great day. I knew how much I wanted to be a vet after that," she says. "I have two dogs, and they're my favorite family members," she grins wickedly at Sam.

Like his sister, Sam has discovered his calling, too. Working with younger kids at football and other volunteer activities helped him to realize he loves kids. "I'd like to be a teacher or work in child psychology someday," he says.  His sister calls him the "Baby Whisperer" because of his great rapport and connection with babies and small children.

Graduation looms on the horizon for Sam, and neither he nor Grace seems