UFH: Marian Passmore

[Barry Bonzack]

If Mrs. Passmore isn't the most dedicated teacher I have ever met, then she is for sure in the top five. She is an outstanding mentor to an outstanding team of students. Some members of her team were telling me that she had tailbone surgery before the Championship event. Did she miss it? Nooooooo. She came with 233, unable to sit on the bus trip all the way to Atlanta. NOW THAT'S DEDICATION!

My first memory of Mrs. Passmore was at the UCF regional in 2004. I was still a team member of 1390 for our rookie year. Our robot did not work the entire regional, barely even moved out of its corner. It spent most of its time in the pits being worked on even when our match was up. At the end of the last day I was tired, frustrated, and a bit down from an anticlimactic end to all the work put in from the 6 weeks. My mom told me she wanted to meet some one, she had been talking to the leader of the awesome Pink team. At first I replied I'd rather just sit down, but went anyway. Mrs. Passmore told me that our team isn't doing so bad for being able to show up, and that many teams their first year end up without even a bot to sit in the corner. She continued to tell me that Pink's first year, they also had a robot that didn't function. This small peptalk lifted my spirits enough to keep at it. My team may never be quite the caliber of 233, but when it has 8 years of experience, I bet they will be far from sitting in the corner during a regional.

Thanks you Mrs. P for everything, and congrats for this award that you very much deserve.