SusoSight SusoSight

Leesburg Elementary School in Leesburg, Indiana was mostly seen as a remote and lacking in quality perhaps. For the most part, it catered to kids from farming families and for a time, kids who lived on Chapman Lake until the 90s, when a school closer to Warsaw was built.

However all despite this, there was one thing that they shined in. As early as the late 1970s they started buying computers for students to use. I remember being in 1st grade in 1980/1981 and we had an Apple II in our classroom that we played Oregon Trail on. In 2nd grade we actually all learned to make computer programs in basic that played sounds. I jokingly called my program Tron, because I had just seen the movie Tron with my family at the drive-in like 3 times.

Throughout the rest of my years there (til 1988), they mostly kept up with the latest technologies and continued providing updated computer labs and a computer in each classroom.

It wasn't really until I reached college that I realized how lucky I was to have this "in school" computer experience. I thought that most kids my age also had computers in their schools but came to find out that it was not often the case and even today not ever school would have a computer in each classroom.

I think the person at Leesburg that was behind this was Mr. Teeple, who was one of the 5th grade teachers at the time. But I'd like to thank anyone there that motivated the school to not only purchase the computers, but maintain them, buy software and provide dedicated time each day to using them. Its funny to think back about how some of the teachers behaved about the computers. They probably felt it was a daunting experience to keep the 4-12 year olds from damaging the computers. Although I had a strong influence at home, I feel that the computers at school helped influence me a great deal.

And remember, Mrs. Delp says, wait until the floppy disk drive light goes out before opening the drive door.