How is it that a third grade teacher can have such an impact on your life?  Miss Bonner was indeed my favorite teacher of all time, so when I received this email this morning it took me by surprise.  She wasn’t that old, cancer seems to sneak up on people that way.  How do I say thank you to someone that has passed away that I never had the chance to tell thank YOU for being you?  ….

Dear Miss Bonner,

I am a lot older now then when I sat in the classroom listening to you each day.  I was a child, and younger than I ever realized at the time.  The school seemed huge, I felt so grown up, and the boys in the class seemed so mature.  My how time and perspective changes things.  I realize now that you were young and I was almost still a baby!  The one thing that was as big as I recall was your personality!  You were continually happy and positive.  You were patient and loving to every student in the class, something I can’t say for all my teachers over the years.  I still remember clearly reading “how to eat friend worms” aloud and the reactions from the kids around me as we laughed and made disgusted noises *you taught me reading could be fun*.  Thank you for devoting endless energies to me and hundreds of other students.  Thank you for coming to my violin performance at my house *when nobody else did* and bringing me a funny book about HUGS.  

This letter is my hug to you and the impact you had on me then and forever…

 Marion Bonner

1955 ~ 2011

Our dear daughter, sister, aunt, and friend, Marion Bonner, passed away peacefully at the home of her brother on October 7, 2011. She was surrounded by her family, safe and secure in their love. She lived courageously with cancer for two years while maintaining her positive, loving, and unselfish disposition and sense of humor.

Marion was born on November 10, 1955 to Dr. Edward Bonner and Carolyn M. Shurtleff Bonner in Salt Lake City, Utah. After graduating from Olympus High School, she attended and graduated from the University of Utah with a teaching degree in Elementary Education from the College of Education. She was an officer in the Kappa Nu chapter of Lambda Delta Sigma.

Upon graduation, Marion accepted employment as a teacher with the Davis School District where she taught Second and Third Grade at Boulton Elementary for thirty-two years. Marion had the special gift to help her students feel loved and important. She was greatly admired and loved by the hundreds of children that entered her classroom and highly esteemed by faculty members, staff, and parents.

She committed her life to her teaching profession and to the many organizations which provided the social life which she enjoyed.