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Teacher's interests inspire kids by PAUL FATTIG First, let's get this straight: Leona Bransom no longer picks up road kills. True, curiosity drives her to watch for them still. She may even slow down to give a particularly interesting specimen a drive-by shooting glance. But the Eagle Point Junior High School teacher no longer drags them into the classroom. "That was about eight years ago -- the group of kids I did that with graduated this last June," she says, then adds with a conspiratorial whisper, "But, you know, it was a wonderful way to get the kids excited about science." Getting students excited about science or any other subject is what has kept Bransom, 59, excited about getting back to the classroom each fall. "When that light bulb turns on in a student's head, you know you've accomplished something," she says. Last week, we caught up with Ruth Kaye, a retired teacher who taught at the long-closed Derby School near Butte Falls. Grants Pass resident Al Johnson called to say he was one of the fortunate students under Kaye's tutelage 60 years ago. A couple of folks suggested we check in with someone still teaching, someone as enthused about learning as Kaye. Bransom was mentioned as a good example of a teacher who goes great lengths to motivate students. Since graduating from what is now Southern Oregon University in 1962, the school where she later earned a master's degree, the Central Point resident with a grown son and daughter has taught in Ashland, Medford and California. And she has continued to learn. She is squeezing in three college computer classes this school year. But subjects such as geography and culture are studied on the road: She has traveled throughout the Middle East, Scandinavia, Europe and South America. She even taught English one summer at the University of St. Petersburg at Pushkin in Russia. Obviously, she likes to go beyond the textbook. Once, before teaching a course on archaeology, she participated in a dig to get her hands on the subject. That brings us back to the road kills, a subject that gets, well, a little rank if left too long. While teaching at Little Butte Intermediate School in Eagle Point, she had taken a summer class about Oregon's cultural history. The class hit the road. "There was a road kill along the road the instructor picked up," she recalls. "That night he cleaned it, then cured it and kept the skin. He talked about the process. It really piqued my interest." Using the proper chemicals and tools, she learned how to bring road kill back to life -- at least still life. She worked with science teachers at Eagle Point High School where, for awhile, she also kept the feathered specimens. Large, furry road kill were deemed too messy. "We would keep the birds in the freezers at school, but it kind of made the faculty upset," she says. "I finally had to take them to my home freezer." At first, just the students collected them. Later parents joined in. "One lady even brought in a dead bird two years after we stopped doing it," she says. Actually, Bransom collected only one specimen during the road-kill era. That bird met its demise on Table Rock Road. But she has stopped to inspect several. Take the time she was driving with several people in her car when she spotted a possum that wasn't just playing possum along the road. "I said, `I'm sorry, but I've got to see this,"' she says. "I stopped the car, backed up and went over with a stick and examined it." Her curiosity about the world infected her students. Sparrows and woodpeckers were mounted on a dead tree planted in a bucket of rocks in her classroom. "You could really see the questions just forming in the kids' minds," she says. "After seeing these creatures up close, they would go find a resource book and learn more. We studied anatomy and how birds fly. We even studied migratory patterns. It was wonderful." Last spring, she watched with pride as some of her road-kill students graduated from Eagle Point High School. She makes a point of attending students' graduation. "I like to think my excitement about lifelong learning is being carried on," she says. "You can learn forever. You never stop." Except for the occasional road kill. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA