NA OPIO / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Barack Obama, in top row, third from left, shown in a 1972 yearbook photo with his fifth-grade class at Punahou School. Their teacher, Mabel Hefty, is on the right.
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President Barack Obama (@POTUS) tweeted his thanks Tuesday to his fifth-grade Punahou School teacher, Mabel Hefty, and “the educators who inspire our young people every single day.”
Hefty, a Brooklyn, N.Y., native, had been teaching at the Honolulu school for more than two decades when Obama entered her class in the fall of 1971. She helped him adjust to his new school and gave him a sense of belonging.
Tuesday was National Teacher Appreciation Day, and the president joined people across the country in publicly thanking beloved teachers.
Hefty’s name also came up during a presidential debate in 2007, when Obama was asked to name his favorite teacher. He credited her for making “every single child feel special.”
Hefty taught at Punahou from 1947 to 1980, and died in 1995.
Apparently, she thought Obama was pretty special, as well.
His name came up in conversation near the end of her life, Hefty’s daughter Carolyn Whorff recalled in an interview with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 2007.
Obama had not yet entered politics at that time.
“I know he’s going to be somebody,” Hefty told her daughter. “You probably will hear about him. If you do, look him up.”
