Beloved Teacher Remembered at Brody Ceremony

Ken Eaton, Brody Middle School teacher.

A dreary, soggy Monday morning was no match for the poignant ceremony that began the day in the auditorium at Brody Middle School.

The space, along with Room #215, used to be the workplace of Ken Eaton, a beloved speech/drama teacher at the school for twenty years until his life was taken in a savage hate crime in 1988. Mr. Eaton was gay and for that he was murdered.

Jennifer Eaton-Bertagnolli, one of Eaton’s two daughters, established a foundation in her father’s memory. Its motto is “Healing Hearts and Opening Minds,” words that embody the growing legacy of a fine teacher gone too soon.

The foundation annually bestows scholarships and coordinates an effort called Valentines for Victims that remembers families who’ve lost loved ones to homicide. Ken Eaton was killed on February 13, 1988, the eve of Valentine’s Day.

Recently Brody Principal Tom Hoffman reached out to Bertagnolli with an idea. Might the foundation be interested in giving a boost to the music appreciation program at Brody under the direction of Dr. Lori Ancona? He also wanted her to know that Brody has been officially designated, “No Place for Hate,” by the Anti-Defamation League and that two school staff members, SUCCESS Case Manager Alyssa Zimmerman and Counselor Kelly Comiskey, are launching a Gay-Straight Alliance as a new extra-curricular club this year at Brody.

Bertagnolli was thrilled and this morning she took the opportunity to tell the students at Brody so.

“My dad was a great teacher,” she told her rapt audience before reading testimonial letters she received from some of his students in the wake of his death. “And music is a great way to honor him here. Music is powerful.”

Behind her fanned out across the stage were ten students with guitars so new that tags still dangled from their necks and the boxes they came in were scattered backstage. On each of them was a small plate that reads: To honor and celebrate Ken Eaton who taught at Brody from 1968-1988.

Bertagnolli also gifted the only school where her father ever taught with a framed memorial to him that was gratefully received by Hoffman and DMPS Superintendent, Dr. Tom Ahart.

Already there had been a gold plaque on one wall of the auditorium in Eaton’s memory inscribed with Shakespeare’s observation that “All the world’s a stage…”

And opposite that hangs a large portrait of the Brody Cardinal with rainbow colored tail feathers and a caption of “Tolerance to Acceptance – For Diversity.”

But now there is something that Brody students for many years to come can get their hands on; something that will allow Eaton to go on teaching here in ways that help kids confidently express themselves, just like he used to…something that, as the novice guitar players and their teacher strummed their first tentative chords together, began to make music, if not complete sense, out of grief.

“I believe everything, good and bad, happens for a reason,” Bertagnolli told the students. She and her father’s legacy and the foundation in his name stand tall and proudly as living proof.