I’ve loved this week of glazing. As I approach the halfway point in my year of creativity, I know we’ll return to this practice again. One thing I’ve realized: so many people in my life deserve to be glazed. Folks who’ve had a direct impact on me, and others I’ve simply admired from afar. I could write a month of glazings and still not capture them all. That’s not a problem everyone has, I know. While I may not have a huge group of close friends, my universe is filled with people who are doing life well.
If you’re reading this, odds are you’re one of them.
And now—our final glaze of the week goes to Patti Macumber.
I met Ms. Macumber when I moved to Sayre, Oklahoma—the town that would carry me through childhood and into adulthood. She was my first homeroom teacher in Sayre Elementary. I was new, awkward, and unsure, but immediately I felt taken care of. She was a family friend of my father’s, and somehow that connection made me feel even safer. (It probably terrified her—knowing my pedigree!) But she didn’t flinch.
In junior high, she became my choir director, and suddenly the doors to harmony, resonance, and musical joy swung open. Her classroom became one of my first creative sanctuaries. We sang. We learned to blend voices. We got loud and quiet together. I found a love for sound that never left me.
Later, in high school, our newly built band/vocal building became my second home. Between choir, band, and honors English, I rarely left the place. And Patti was at the center of it all.
She pushed us hard in that English class. We didn’t just read—we performed. I still remember reading Beat poetry versions of Jim Handy scenes, laughing so hard I cried. I remember the feeling of being a leader. Of being seen. Sometimes when I close my eyes to drift to sleep, her voice returns—not in memory, but in sound:
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote…
Later, before leaving for college, I was invited to join the Oklahoma Ambassadors of Music on a performance tour of Europe. It may have been a passing moment for her to submit my name, but it changed everything. Traveling and performing across Europe cracked something open in me. It was the first time I saw—really saw—that there was more to life than western Oklahoma. It was the beginning of my first big transformation.
Years later, when I returned to Sayre in a deep depression, Patti—alongside Mr. Matthews—invited me back into the world of art. Into plays. Into song. She helped lift me back toward myself. She didn't have to say, “You matter.” Her invitations did the talking. And I listened. I lived. Partly because she helped make that possible.
Even now, I watch her from afar—her fierce heart continuing to take on the world, one post at a time. Always hoping for the best in others. Always wanting art to rise and hate to fall. She was a role model when I was in fifth grade, and she remains one as I approach fifty.
But her story stretches far beyond my thread.
Patti “Toon” Macumber has given four decades to education and the arts. She turned the Sayre choir program into a state powerhouse, led award-winning theater productions, taught drama and English with fire and grace, and even served as principal for the prison education program at North Fork Correctional Facility—bringing compassion and rigor into places many fear to tread. Her life has been a lighthouse for countless students, colleagues, and communities, in Oklahoma and Texas alike. She’s acted in musicals, kissed pigs for school fundraisers, and continues to teach people young and old how to live a life of value.
In every phase of her life, she has reminded those around her: art and love matter. And so does showing up.
So today, I glaze Patti Macumber—for being a flame that warmed the room, lit the path, and never once asked for applause. She has given more than a lifetime’s worth of song, story, and care. And many of us are here—still here—because of it.
This is the final glaze of this week, but not the final glaze of the year. The door remains open. We’ll return to this practice in the second half of the year with even more stories, more light.
Until then—thank you, Patti. For everything.