WILMINGTON — As she embarks on her retirement, former math tea­cher and Wilmington High School Principal Linda Peters leaves a legacy of kindness, encouragement, and hard work spanned out over the past 48 years of service.

Dorene Messieri, a former student of Peters, sends a brief thank you to Peters for the impact she had on Messieri and her brother, Bruce.

“One reason I am very proud to say I grew up in Wilmington and still continued to carry my roots here... Miss Peters was literally one of the best teachers I ever had in school years. My brother Bruce Bennett couldn't have said it better — thank you for making us the students we were and the adults we are today. You will always hold a very special place in our hearts.”

Bennett, in his post in the “I’m Lucky — I Grew Up in Wilmington” Face­book group, talks about the impact Peters had on his life and career.

“45 years ago, the wo­man in the middle of this photo changed my life forever. Her name is Linda Peters and she was a math teacher at the West Intermediate Jr High School in Wilmington, MA. She dedicated her life to teaching and eventually became the principal of Wilmington High School for the last nine years of her career. Today was her retirement party and I was so happy to see her and give her the biggest hug and heartfelt thank you ever. What did she do you ask? Well…

“The year was 1977 and I was attending the Friday night Halloween Dance. The kids all arrived on time but the musical DJ did not. To save the night, a mother of one of the students who was chaperoning ran home and got her record player, speakers, and as many records as she could carry. The night was saved to the best it could be.

“The following week the school started to plan the next dance for Thanks­giving — The ‘Turkey Trot Dance’ with rumors that they were going to hire the same mother to come back and just play music for it.

“Now anybody who really knows me, and knew me back then, knew that not only did I play guitar at a very young age, but my sister and I (Dorene Messieri) loved music, and had the biggest rec­ord collection. We used to have disco lights, record players, speakers, black light posters, and anything you could think of to enhance the enjoyment of us listening to music in a basement. We even had a mirror ball! (Just for those that know me as a studio engineer — yes, the very same basement that eventually became Kashmir Recording Studio.)

“Our friend's mom that saved the Halloween dance was nice, and helpful, but had nowhere near as many records as Dorene and I did. So I figured if anybody could just ‘play their rec­ords,’ I figured ‘why not us?’

“So I went to the office and spoke to the principal, Mr. Barrett. He said I need­ed to speak with Miss Peters, the school dance coordinator. She was not my teacher but did teach math to my sister four years prior. Nervously, after school I went to her classroom and knocked on the door. I can remember shaking, I was so nervous. I introduced myself and reminded her she taught math to my sister four years prior and she re­membered. I complimented our friend’s mom on the Halloween dance, but told Miss Peters we would like a chance to play OUR record collection.

“What did she do? She gave a 12-year-old kid, and his 16-year old sister consideration… and a chance.

She could’ve said no or made up an excuse, but instead Miss Peters gave me a task list to audition for the job. I needed to get permission from the principal, set a date to ‘audition,’ ask Mr. Lee, the school janitor, to stay late in the cafeteria so we could set up and show her our setup and our ‘stuff.’ Then, If we proved we could do it, we would get paid $50 for the gig.

“We had one week to audition since the turkey trot dance was two weeks away. I can’t tell you how many times I had to ride my bicycle to RadioShack that week and learn how to make my stereo system louder, and what watts, ohms, impedance and signal flow was. But I did. The audition day came and we set up the most extravagant system with flashing lights, strobe lights, mirrorball, police beacons, color organs, and basically everything that was available out of the Sears catalog at that time. We wrapped the table with foil wrapping paper to look cool.

“We created a presentation. She was blown away. And then she came to the stage and saw our record collection. We asked her for requests and we had it ALL. Couldn’t stump us. This is where I learned in life you can never make a second first impression.

“Needless to say, Dorene and I got the gig. She was 16 years old and could drive and I was 12 years old with a guitar amplifier for the left speaker and a borrowed Heathkit bass amplifier for the right speaker, and a RadioShack microphone. All with basically every disco light out of the Sears catalog… We made that cafeteria look like a disco club. That led to my first experience with being an entrepreneur.

“Eventually, Dorene and I DJ’d every school in the immediate local area. We have DJ’d hundreds of events for the next 20 years. That electronics knowledge eventually led to me building a recording studio, writing songs, re­cording my own bands as well as others. Simply a lifetime full of music business entrepreneurship. All along while I was able to fulfill my dream of playing in bands, and being on stages and simply loving to play and enjoy music. Thank you ‘Miss Peters’ for being a great educator and student advocate. What a wonderful human being. Pay it forward.”

Bennett then went on to be in the band Shot of Poi­son, which has performed recently with Bret Mi­chaels, for Jimmy Fallon, and many more.

Additional information about the band can be found on their website, shotofpoision.com (http://shotofpoison.com/home.html).

(0) comments

Welcome to the discussion.

Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.