Wednesday, June 3, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon LETTERS Continued from page 2 who also happened to have only one arm. Change of plans. I excused myself to the other ushers and led these two to another gate close to where Mr. Payne9s trailer was parked. She was explaining to me that her son was just finishing his first year of school. It had been so rough because of the way the kids were treating him that he said he never wanted to go back to school. John was in his tack room still catching his breath, but without hesitation, he came out, intro- duced himself with a big, warm smile that I will never forget, and sat down on the step of the trailer so he could talk to the boy face to face. As John was explaining what he had been through, there was such empathy and compassion that the boy9s mother and I were in tears. She was squeezing my arm (and for days there was a slight bruise 4 which I didn9t mind at all). This little guy went from sad and defeated, shar- ing his stories of all the bullying, to smiling and hopeful& When they were done John pulled out an eight- by-10-inch color photo, autographed it with a lovely personal note of encouragement, and as he wrote a phone number on it he said,