My Story
Dehoney, Debbie

>>DEBBIE: My name is Debbie Dehoney and I'm associated with the Boise State Writing Project. This is my story. I had a typical time as a child writing; I was just discouraged a lot by maybe teachers, maybe the fact that I just didn't get it very well. Well I grew up and became a teacher and I'm a proud teacher of twenty-five second graders. I have found a young man in my class that had similar problems; it reminded me a lot of me as a young child. Thankfully I came up with an idea - well actually I stole an idea from a colleague of mine who told me, "Why don't you give them a little friend to take with them or someone to write about." So my friend, Chicago Bear, came to Kimberly Idaho and he is now the mascot of our writing group in our class. I had a young man a few years ago named Andrew, and Andrew is a boy that suffers from Asperger's and Andrew really didn't have a friend but he got a friend and my little friend Chicago Bear and Andrew's world opened up into a beautiful place where Andrew could put all of the things that were balled up inside of him on paper. I watched Andrew grow and blossom as he wrote "The Adventures of Chicago Bear" in Chicago Bear's journal. Andrew now is a successful young man and is doing some wonderful things in high school and is looking forward to going on to the university next year and has made many friends. Thanks to the writing and Chicago Bear, we've made some great progress and strides.