Originally printed in The Batesville Daily Guard (http://www.guardonline.com) and reprinted with the kind permission thereof.

Retired West Elementary third-grade teacher Sharon Testi was scrapbooking before scrapbooking was popular. For most of her 43-year teaching career, Testi kept scrapbooks in her classroom, filled with news clippings, photographs — memories — she saved to highlight her students during the year.

Now those scrapbooks, which hold a special place in her heart, are reminders of her former students and classes. And, while she has never given away one of her 20 scrapbooks, on Monday Testi did.

She presented the 17-year-old scrapbook to Col. Rudolph T. Byrne, 314th operations group commander at the Little Rock Air Force Base, during a farewell ceremony for Byrne, who is being reassigned to Germany.

But her gift wasn’t something planned. Several weeks ago Testi said she picked up her copy of the Guard and read about upcoming events and discovered that Byrne was to be a featured speaker in Batesville.

“‘That name just sounds so familiar,’” Testi said she thought to herself. Testi went into her garage and pulled out her scrapbooks, one from her 1990-’91 third-grade class, and there was Byrne just as she had thought.

The scrapbook contained letters written to her students by him and other soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Shield. It also contained photographs and souvenirs sent by Byrne during the Persian Gulf War when he was a pilot.

Once Testi made the connection, and without wanting to make a “big to-do” about it, she made plans to give the book to Byrne the following day where he was scheduled to speak.

But her plans were stopped short when Byrne’s schedule changed.

After that Testi said she didn’t know how to get the scrapbook to Byrne until she contacted U.S. Air Force veteran Hank Rivers of Evening Shade. Rivers contacted Cynde Maddox, 314 Airlift chief community relations director at the Little Rock base, and learned Byrne was to be honored Monday.

Maddox invited Testi to the ceremony to surprise Byrne, almost two decades later, with the book she hopes will brings back “some good memories and joy for him,” although “a war never brings anyone joy,” Testi said.

While she treasures the scrapbook, Testi said she has “come to peace with giving it away” and hopes the book will be something Byrne’s kids will treasure even more since it involves their father.

In an e-mail Monday, Byrne said he was stunned when Testi presented the scrapbook to him. “I really wanted to make sure that she wanted me to have it, after all, she had kept it for the past 17 years,” he wrote.

The first time Testi had students write to soldiers was when her teaching career began in Indiana when she had students write to soldiers during the Vietnam War.

In 1990, after reading an article in the Guard about writing to soldiers fighting in the Gulf War, Testi thought the idea would be a way to boost her students’ writing skills and familiarize them with worlds and cultures outside their own, she said.

Testi said some soldiers would respond to her students’ letters, especially Byrne, who referred to Testi’s class as “his” third-graders in one letter. Testi said she didn’t expect her class to receive so many letters from the soldiers “considering what the men were going through at the time.”

Byrne sent students holiday cards, foreign money and even sand from Saudi Arabia during that school year. In the summer of ’91, Byrne, who went to Little Rock for C-130 Aircraft Commander school, scheduled a meeting at the base, where Testi and about 12 of her students spent a day with Byrne, who gave them a tour of the base and explained functions of a C-130 plane, which they also toured.

Deann (Lewallen) Castleberry, 25, remembered visiting the base and writing the letters to Byrne and others. She said she remembers how patient Byrne was with their class and what a neat experience it was. “When you’re young you don’t really know about things like that (the military and war),” Castleberry said. Byrne, now 47, said the scrapbook has offered him a trip down memory lane because some of the letters in it were from a colleague, whom he hasn’t seen since the early ’90s and some letters were from a crew member during his early days of Operation Desert Shield. Byrne said he could never forget Testi’s third-graders because he “had such a great time writing them.”

“The scrapbook is a wonderful remembrance and I will display it proudly,” he said.

Lacy Mitchell, 24, resides in Smithville, Ark. A recent college graduate of Arkansas State University with a journalism degree, Lacy is a reporter for the Batesville Daily Guard newspaper in Batesville, Ark.

While she only wishes she could scrapbook, she is always awe-inspired to see the work of others who do scrapbook. Lacy is an avid collector of vintage memorbilia and is a huge Elvis Presley and 1950s fan. She loves to dress up in '50s clothes and go dancing on weekends with her fiance Luke, who is a 1950s rock 'n' roll, Jerry Lee Lewis-style piano player.