It’s been said that your true friends will know you better in the first 30 seconds then your acquaintances will know you in thirty years. Such was my relationship with Duane Smith. As a salesman I came through Southern Oregon every couple of weeks in the mid 90’s and I had heard a well-heeled couple raving about Lithia Springs in Ashland. So in coming over the hill from California one time I called and asked to speak to the proprietor. Duane got on the phone and I explained that while my per diem for lodging was barely more than half his room rate I could become a consistent guest on those nights when he had an empty room and thus enhance his overall profitability. He said he wasn’t sure about such an arrangement but that I should come down the hill and we could meet at the Inn. That was the beginning of a 25 year friendship between kindred spirits.

I met Duane Smith when he was teaching the 6th grade, he was the first person to find something worth saving in my life. I am the Teresa Sanderson he wrote about in his books about his classroom, I loved him dearly over the years. He came to my wedding and my 50th birthday, he loved me and considered all my successes his successes. I will miss him ,  I will come to his service.