3 > the antlerette // fall 2019
D EB B IE MA RT I NEZ & H ER LEG AC Y SELENA ENRIQUEZ // STAFF
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ebbie Martinez is our school’s secretary and she has been for 16 years! She retires in December and is headed for Texas. For those of us who haven’t had the pleasure of getting to know her before, this article is for you. The first thing you should know about Mrs. Martinez is that she’s always willing to try something different and learn something new. She spends much of her time caring for her seven dogs and four grandchildren that like to munch on the tomatoes, zucchini, chili peppers, cucumbers, and green beans that grow in her vegetable garden. She says she wanted her “kids to have the experience of caring for something else and learning how to be selfless. [Having pets] is a responsibility that teaches.” Mrs. Martinez will miss Elk Grove High tremendously; she views her peers as family, she recognizes that the teachers here provide an opportunity of growth, learning, and genuine care that you can’t find anywhere else, and that the students are trying to make a difference despite the tension on campus. “You guys keep me young, although I’m actually quite old!” she remarks, as she tells the story of when she took in a student with a bad home life who is still a part of her family to this day! From the short amount of time I spent with Mrs. Martinez, I found a human with a genuine passion and hope for humanity, a gal who seeks peace and happiness in every dark corner of the world. A high school secretary with a big heart and a caring soul who, although, dislikes being the center of attention, deserves a whole bunch of it. For those of you who know or don’t know Mrs. Martinez, she wants you to always remember this: “Think about your own legacy, what you want people to remember you for, and touch somebody else. Because really, at the end of the day, we are put here for a reason, so hopefully you are taking whatever gift you were given, and you are making the world a better place for everybody else, and it doesn’t have to be the whole world. It just has to be the world you live in, your sphere of influence. [When] you make that better, then all those people make their sphere of influence better, and it perpetuates and it perpetuates and it’s your legacy that started it.”
The first thing you should kno
Mrs. Martinez is that she’s alwa
willing to try something differ learn something new.
What are some words of advice to fresh We all make mistakes, we all do goofy
can learn to laugh at yourself, it’s not go
when someone else says something si
Would you rather be able to trave
Sometimes I’d like to freeze time
flying past me, but if I could trave
to relive some of the things I love
the future. So if I had to pick one
