Smile Bomb

With the new option to remove masks in the classroom, it has become a largely enjoyable thing to see others’ smiles. To contribute to the smiles, the Whirlwind special report staff came up with the Smile Bombーhere you make something with lots of nice compliments all over it and give it to someone. The first victim was Kelli Backer.

     “[Backer] rarely gets down,” science teacher Shana Hains said. “When I talk about somebody who likes to see the glass half full when she can, I think of Mrs. Backer.”

     Backer has had some hard things happen in her life, but she tends to have a smile on her face. Whether it’s standing outside her classroom between classes or picking on the students in her own classroom, one can almost always see joy on her face. 

     “She knows her science and biology and puts a lot of time and dedicated a lot of her own personal time to bring the best curriculum to the school,” Lifelong Health & Wellness teacher Brittiney Eudy said.

     Backer is one of our many science teachers at West, and with that comes the privilege of teaching students about the ever changing world and how it works. With things changing, it also comes with the task of changing lessons from what they were years ago so that the class stays up to date with newer discoveries. Backer chooses to constantly update the lessons so that they go along with the newest information that is available. 

     “My brother had her [Backer] previously and he said good things about her,” senior Jackson Hilbert said. “So when I first saw that I had her, I was pretty excited to have her as a teacher.” 

     This just shows how Backer is as a teacher and how she has impacted our school in so many ways.