In Search of Barbara Sanders, Teacher Extraordinaire

I've been searching for her for years on the web: Barbara Sanders, my eighth grade social studies teacher at Broadmoor Junior High School (now defunct, it's been turned into a mental health facility, which seems appropriate for a junior high). She was well educated, funny, professional, tough...I would love to be able to thank her lo, these many years later (30, to be exact) for giving me a greater thirst for knowledge than I will ever be able to quench.

I adored her in my shy-student way and tried to rise to the occasion on all of her tests and projects to impress her. While other students (even my best friend, Shawna) complained that she was too demanding, I relished her over-the-top assignments, her witty notes in the margins of my essays, and especially her "fast casts," a current events teaching method -- probably her invention -- which I have attempted to replicate when volunteering in my children's classrooms over the years.

At the beginning of every class, Mrs. Sanders stood at the chalkboard, her hand flying to print the essential facts and figures, names, terms, and acronyms of people and events in the news while we, her students, took notes. To this day, I have the major world events of 1977-1978 down. And she didn't just teach about what was happening at the moment -- she taught about how today's events evolved from events of the past. She conveyed the most brilliant and succinct summary of the conflict in the Middle East, for example, that I have ever heard.

I've tried Classmates.com and dozens of Google searches over the years to locate her. I've even made attempts to find her through the school district. Here are the facts I remember:

• Barbara Sanders (married name; husband rumored to be a banker in Kansas City)
• taught social studies at Broadmoor Junior High School in Overland Park, KS (Shawnee Mission School District)
• Eldest child named Tara
• African American
• Thin, attractive, professionally dressed
• Two unusual words she used frequently: cherub, esoteric

Mrs. Sanders, if you're out there somewhere, I salute you! Thank you for teaching me that history is an ongoing story and introducing me to the modern world in context of the past.