Louisville – On her second-to-last day at Louisville Elementary School, Robyn Hamasaki walked out of the building into a scene only a principal could truly appreciate.
Before her was a churning current of kids, bubbling with giddy shrieks, awash in silly grins, surging forward to meet her and wish her goodbye and tell her how much she will be missed while she spends the next two years serving in the Army Reserve in Washington state.
Even for Miss Hamasaki, who has been the principal at Louisville Elementary for the past seven years, it was overwhelming.
“Boys and girls, I’m speechless,” she said. “Miss Hamasaki is never speechless. I am so proud to be learning here at Louis ville Elementary School with all of you.”
Thursday afternoon, the students, staff and parents at Louisville Elementary gave Hamasaki a send-off. In a few weeks, she will report for duty as a personnel officer in the Army Reserve based in Vancouver, Wash.
While some of her unit heads to Iraq, she will make sure everyone’s paperwork and wills are in order. And while they are away, she will look after their families and help however she can.
Hamasaki said she is excited about the new challenge but sad to be leaving her school.
Hamasaki’s biggest challenge Thursday was trying not to cry.
“I’m trying to hold it together until Saturday,” she told a colleague.
As she made her way through the crowd of kids and parents, she spoke to everyone by name.
“I’m going to miss how she’s such a great principal and how she was so great in talking to everybody at the school,” said fifth-grader Noah Horst, who wore his Webelos uniform to school Thursday because he knew Miss Hamasaki would appreciate it. She did, and saluted when she saw him.
Some students said they would miss Hamasaki’s playing her saxophone at school events. Others said they would miss her announcing students’ birthdays on the intercom. And some didn’t even try to single out one thing they would miss.
“Well, mostly everything,” said Olivia Thomasson, a second-grader. “I can’t pick favorite things.”
In the middle of the ceremony, the fifth-grade class gathered to sing Hamasaki a song called “Everyday Heroes.”
“Every day there are heroes who never meant to be,” they sang. “People give, people care. There are heroes everywhere.”
And, as much as she tried not to, Miss Hamasaki started to cry.
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
