OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — Adam Fisher still remembers kindergarten. It was 1981, at the DODDS elementary school in Sembach, Germany. And he still has fond memories of his teacher, Elizabeth Stapleford.
So he was amused to discover, at a parents’ orientation meeting in September, that one of the teachers at Osan American Elementary School had the same name.
“I laughed and told my wife, ‘That’s pretty funny. My kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Stapleford,’ ” Fisher said.
But Sembach had been 27 years ago, and a lot had happened since. He’d attended Brigham Young University, married a fellow tuba player in the school marching band, become an Air Force pilot and had four children.
As it turns out, the Mrs. Stapleford who is teaching Fisher’s 5-year-old daughter, Hannah, is the same woman who taught his kindergarten class.
He thought he recognized her, but when he saw her later in the lunchroom, “I wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but she looked really … similar to what I remember,” Fisher said.
When he later had a chance to chat with Stapleford at the school, he said, “She gave me a hug, and we just sat and talked for a minute.”
Stapleford, who with her husband has been teaching for 40 years, said she had no trouble remembering Adam Fisher.
Fisher, 32, now flies the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jet with the 25th Fighter Squadron, part of Osan’s 51st Fighter Wing.
“He still looks the same, actually,” she said. “Just a bigger version of the same.”
