Pen pal, former student visits elementary school
By EMILY BOWLIN
Second grade students at Peabody Elementary were thrilled when their pen pal in the Navy stopped by Friday to pay them a visit.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Randall Winter has been corresponding with the class since September through e-mail. He was aboard the USS Carl Vinson for the past six months, four months of which involved Operation Enduring Freedom in the Arabian Sea.
He listened as the children introduced themselves to him and stated one thing they remembered he had written. ET3 Winter then shared with the class various things he'd seen and done while overseas.
There was a stretch of 112 consecutive days when he hadn't been on land. He even taught them how to speak a little Thai and passed around some foreign money for the children to look at. One child commented it didn't smell like real money.
Ports they stopped at on the way home to the States were Pattaya Beach, Thailand; Singapore; and Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii. When they were in Hawaii, he went deep-sea fishing with a couple of friends.
Some of the pictures he shared with the class included a jet breaking the sound barrier, a wave washing over the ship's flight deck, and him at the computer he worked at and read their e-mails from.
The students couldn't believe he also had been a student at Peabody Elementary School at their age, and that Venita Loewen, Pat Neufeld, and Donna Stucky were among the staff and teachers he'd known as well.
He gave everyone a picture of his ship, a naval badge, and a coin from Singapore.
During recess, some of the students led him on a tour of the school. Before he left, he was embraced in a group hug.
ET3 Winter graduated from Peabody High School in 1988 and has served in the Navy for two years. For a year and a half, he trained in Chicago, Ill., and Biloxi, Miss., for work on satellite communications and meteorological gear.
After enjoying a couple of weeks back home in Peabody, he returned to Bremerton, Wash., on Tuesday to work on the ship. It will take six months to a year to get the ship ready to go back out.
The son of Dale and Debbie Winter, rural Peabody, he also is also an uncle of Mikayla and Gunner Winter, students of Peabody Elementary. Mikayla was pleased to welcome her uncle to the classroom.
