To the Editor:
Some people just stand out. Linda Dascher Headley-Walker, who passed away at age 79 on Aug. 6, 2023, was such a person.

I first heard her voice before I ever met her in person. Why was that?

In 10th grade, when I was new to Guilderland Central High School, Linda was one of two people who read the announcements for the day over the intercom. You’d think a teacher would have done that, but Linda had the maturity and air of a teacher even in 10th grade.

At the end of that 10th-grade year, when I was a bit uncertain of things, she smiled at me as I was leaving Mrs. Wilson’s English class and said to me, “Will you be coming to our 10th-grade picnic in Thacher Park?”

“Uh, I guess so,” I replied, feeling a bit more like I belonged than I did before speaking with Linda, the born leader.

She just had a gift for saying the right thing at the right time. When I mentioned my hesitations to her later, at our class’s 30th reunion, she just said, “We were all just coming together at that time.”

She didn’t just invite me into the class once; she locked me into it a second time.

Senior Ball can be a real minefield, especially back then when you had to have a date; all the pairings tended to be preset already, and those who didn’t have a date didn’t come at all. It was just that way back then. And I didn’t have a date.

She didn’t get one for me or become my date, but when I got into a scramble where I invited someone who already had been invited but would have wanted to come with me, Linda just smoothly managed and adjusted the whole thing, leaving me to dig deep into my reserves and find a date who wasn’t already spoken for.

Linda, I’m trying to say, was one of us but somehow outstanding and more than one of us. I used to tease her about a guy in the class I knew she had a crush on, but she just laughed. And, besides, she had a handsome boyfriend who didn’t even go to our school, a mystery man, tall and dark and suave.

Speaking of doing things outside our usual boundaries, Linda was touted once as some kind of finalist or winner in the Miss Junior Miss Contest. How about that? She was a beauty queen for us, too, but she did a classic end-around and was a beauty queen for the world. Miss Junior Miss.

Whenever we had a class reunion, I used her as a reference point, really. When I wasn’t sure what was going on or who was up to what or even where I should stand, I’d just find Linda and she’d know. She stood by the door giving out picture badges for everyone.

For the first of our reunions that I attended, she put out a directory of everyone with a brief bio. She was thoughtful that way, because we were all curious.

Every once in a while you meet up with someone who seems like she’s above it all but is simple and kind and just reassures you that, no, we’re all above it all. She’s just one of us, and each of us is one of us, too.

“All you had to do was ask,” she said to me at one of those reunions.

I didn’t know that and wouldn’t have had the nerve anyway. She was the voice on the intercom when the school day started. She already had a date and knew who everyone else’s date was, too. She was a cheerleader and a leader in the clubs and just the kind of person who keeps everything and everyone running smoothly.

I was happy to read in her obituary of all her success in her professional life. Nor was it any surprise when her children grew up to be world beaters.

She was one of us, without a doubt. We all knew and admired her. But every once in a while someone comes along who can’t help standing out and does it without making anyone else uncomfortable.

That one was Linda, and I know that in her passing she knows just where to go and just what to do and is helping anyone else who needs it. She’s probably giving the announcements.

James Meade, Ph.D.

 Milanville, Pennsylvania