Bryan Elementary School said goodbye last week to one of its long-time teachers.

Fifth-grade teacher Sherry Askew Ledlow, 54, died on March 19. She had taught at Bryan Elementary for 23 years.

Bryan principal Debra Campbell said Ledlow never came back to work after Christmas break due to an illness.

Campbell hired a certified substitute teacher to stand in for the beloved teacher. Campbell had been expecting Ledlow to return to school in April or May.

Volunteers had remodeled Ledlow’s classroom for her while she was in the hospital, but Ledlow never got to see the changes.

“We are going to miss her so much,” Campbell said. “She was a fine Christian woman. We are going to miss her tremendously.”

Campbell said Bryan’s teachers were consoling each other and recalling funny things that Ledlow had done and said at school.

Due to Ledlow’s illness, counselors had been talking with Ledlow’s fifth-grade class since January.

Bryan postponed state testing on Tuesday in order to allow students, faculty and staff to attend Ledlow’s funeral.

Campbell described Ledlow as a hard worker who “was all the time doing something different.”

Read the full article in Saturday’s edition of the North Jefferson News.