Kristy Duggan

I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Starting in 4th grade, I had an entire notebook full of pages and pages of story ideas plus a mini novel that I was working on. I had some romance, middle school drama, and even a little science fiction. One story had an alien that looked like a 10 foot praying mantis hiding in the trees around our house. I was the reporter for my 4-H club for two years and learned that writing for a newspaper required a different style. In college, I worked for the school newspaper and the yearbook staff as a photographer and assistant editor.

When I lost my home in the Andover Tornado in 1991, I wasn’t concerned about the material possessions that were smashed to smithereens but I was very sad to lose my childhood writings, artwork, and photos. Those were not replaceable.

I stopped writing for a long time while I was getting established in my teaching career as I spent every spare moment planning lessons and grading papers. However, a spark was lit again one day when a family member sent me a link to their story on www.ourecho.com. Reading through their story on the website made me realize and remember how much writing had benefited me years before. Writing is a stress reliever in addition to being a creative outlet. It also helps future generations to know and understand me better

My son amazes me with his oral story telling ability. When he was four years old, I sat him down in front of the video camera. He talked for a full hour into the camera with one chapter after another in the life of his dragon, Flame. Flame the dragon gets into all kinds of trouble.

Recently, I helped my son complete a book for the Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest. He used his three shark stuffed animals, Bruce, Bang and Hockey Puck as the main characters. It was a great bonding time for my son and me. I can’t wait until we get his book back from the contest so that he can show it to everyone. He even tied the bindings together with yarn that looked like seaweed.

I love to write, draw and take pictures. I combine all these things into my scrapbooking and have spent a lot of my spare time recently learning new techniques in digital scrapbooking. It incorporates all of my desire to be artistic and creative while leaving something for future generations to remember me by.

I thank www.ourecho.com for giving me back the writing bug, for reminding me how much joy I receive from taking the time to write.

Story ID:	3817
Written by:	OurEcho Admin (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Story type:	In The Spotlight
Location:	Andover Kansas USA
Year:	2008
Person:	Kristy Duggan