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Becky Brothers’ legacy highlighted at PIE breakfast
Eight students were recognized with a special scholarship at the Putnam County PIE Coalition’s last breakfast of the school year last Friday. For many, it honors an educator who was committed to serving others.
Becky Brothers was a student-athlete who graduated from North Putnam and then, by many accounts, was an integral teacher, educator and guidance counselor at South Putnam for three decades. In that time, she had a profound impact on students and colleagues alike.
“So many of us knew Becky, and what a champion she was,” PIE coordinator Linda Merkel told students at the breakfast. “Not just for the South Putnam students, but for every student who needed help, Becky was there.”
Brothers died in December 2011 from complications of ovarian cancer. Among other honors, she was recognized by then-Gov. Mitch Daniels with the Distinguished Hoosier Award shortly before her death, preceded by being named the Citizen of the Year for 2010.
However, these awards only highlight the story of Brothers’ dedication to students. Indeed, she eschewed such recognition.
Jana Brothers, who is married to Becky’s brother Bill, attested to this attempting to do “justice” to that impact. She related that Becky would be “really ticked” that she was talking about her, because what she did was “so not” about her.
“You are probably figuring out as high schoolers that, in life, there are givers and there are takers,” Brothers said as she consulted husband Bill’s “sacred notebook.” She noted that the givers will typically be the servants.
Brothers prefaced that Becky grew up with her four brothers with sports being at the forefront. She played intramural sports when there was the Girls Athletic Association, effectively the precursor to Title IX. Note that Becky was a three-sport athlete when she attended Marian College.
Brothers related that Becky found that “something” was missing when she initially worked as a dental assistant after high school. After graduating on an education track at Marian, she finally settled in at South Putnam High School.
“The moment she made that commitment to South Putnam, she was full-bore,” Brothers said about Becky supporting South Putnam’s arts and athletics. She and her brothers were especially involved in softball.
Becky had many kids whom she supported and encouraged almost as a surrogate parent, she not having any children of her own. Even so, she stayed a commitment to her family after her mother and one of her brothers died.
“I think that one of the reasons that you are here today is because kind of what Becky started years ago,” Brothers said about her efforts to unite students and the schools together. The PIE Coalition was one initiative of many that she supported on this front.
There was an understanding that one never said “No” to Becky Brothers. Eighth-grader Jerrod Baugh did not when she asked him to be the girls’ basketball manager at South Putnam. He might say that her asking not merely kept him out of trouble, but set him up for success.
“It’s people like that, people like you, who are making a difference,” Brothers commended the students with their work in PIE. “She (Becky) was so in awe of what you students are going to do with your lives.”
On Becky’s headstone at Brick Chapel Cemetery, there is her name, two eagles and a reference to Isaiah 40:31: “They shall mount up with wings like eagles ...”
“So see, South Putnam, you made a difference; and North Putnam, Cloverdale, Greencastle, you guys can make a difference,” Brothers yearned. “Please just be a servant.”