Aside from parents, teachers can have the most influence on a young person. And judging by what students of a late Surry County educator have to say about him, that impact was huge.

“When I think about Joe Kirkman, no man other than my father has had more effect on my life,” Darrell Beck said Sunday of a teacher who spent 32 years in Surry County schools until cancer claimed him in 2005.

“We always looked forward to his class,” said another of Kirkman’s students, Sabrina McCreary Moore, who added Sunday that this sentiment was shared by others at the school as well.

“We would run to be the first ones to his class every day,” Moore added.

“He taught me how to think,” said Beck, now 31, who like Moore was a student at Franklin Elementary, where the bulk of Kirkman’s career was logged.

While he was known for instructing math and other subjects from a tiny trailer classroom there, Kirkman taught his pupils giant lessons in life, they said.

Beck explained that Kirkman “helped us see things from a global perspective,” such as when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and the teacher was able to show his young elementary students why that event was so important to them.

“He was an exceptional teacher — but more than that I feel he was a friend,” Beck said.

Fourth-Annual Event

Grateful former students and others in the area where Joe Kirkman spent his entire educational career have a chance to repay what he gave the community through an event on Aug. 28 at Dobson known as “Joe Fest.”

Scheduled from 2 to 10 p.m. at Fisher River Park, it will feature live music by local rock bands, fireworks and more.

Along with honoring the legacy of Kirkman, Joe Fest — now in its fourth year — generates money for a scholarship fund aimed at helping others follow in his footsteps.

“We’re almost at $10,000,” Kirkman’s wife, Trinette, said of the Joseph Roy Kirkman Teacher Scholarship Fund. It is designed to cover costs of tuition and books for students at Surry Community College who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in education.

Joe Fest will be held for the first time at Fisher River Park just outside Dobson, after previously being staged at Jomeokee Music Park in Pinnacle.

While attendance for the event has grown each year, Trinette Kirkman believes this change of venue will make Joe Fest even more successful since Fisher River Park is a more centralized location for Surry County residents who knew her husband.

“It’s gorgeous,” she said of the spacious, county-owned facility where the bands will put on their respective shows from an amphitheater on the park grounds.

Groups slated to perform include The Bo-Stevens, The Punk Floyd Project, Buster Gnome, JJ Blue and Joe’s Jammin’ Band. The musical aspect of Joe Fest highlights another role of Kirkman’s as a drummer for several area groups, with Joe’s Jammin’ Band the last he performed with before his death.

The family oriented gathering that is open to the public also will include children’s games, fireworks, food, a 50-50 cash drawing and a new attraction this year, a silent auction. “Many businesses in Mount Airy and Pilot Mountain have already donated items,” Trinette Kirkman reported.

Admission to Joe Fest is free, with tax-deductible donations to be accepted toward the scholarship. Those unable to attend the Aug. 28 event can contribute by mail to the Kirkman Teacher Scholarship, P.O. Box 365, Mount Airy, N.C., 27030.

Kirkman’s wife added that an eventual goal of the scholarship effort is an endowment foundation to provide assistance for students attending other institutions in addition to SCC.

Along with his work at Franklin Elementary, Kirkman taught for three years at Pilot Mountain Middle School, where his assignment included grades 6-8. While at that school, the graduate of North Surry High School and Wake Forest University was forced to quit in December 2004 as his illness worsened.

“He didn’t want to resign,” his wife recalled. “He knew he had to,” so school administrators could plug in a replacement. Trinette Kirkman pointed out that the last group of students her husband mentored at Pilot Mountain will be incoming seniors this fall.

A Web site for Joe Fest can be accessed at www.teachfundfest.org.

Students Recall

Kirkman

“I learned a lot of math in Mr. Kirkman’s class,” Beck remembers of his time with the veteran teacher who helped motivate him to learn and achieve. Along the way, Kirkman displayed a sense of caring along with a legendary sense of humor, he added.

“I loved the days when we’d skip math altogether and talk current events,” Beck says on a Facebook.com page honoring Kirkman which was set up by Moore.

On that page, Beck also mentions “the hum/whistle he (Kirkman) would do when he would put his hand on my forehead and read my mind.”

Beck later would graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and now is associated with a family business, Wholesale Monument Co. in Mount Airy. He attended Joe Fest in 2009, but his plans for this year’s gathering are a little iffy due to recently becoming a father.

“He taught us how to treat others,” Beck added Sunday of his former teacher, explaining that this involved a method of reinforcing the point that “it’s about more than just me.”

“The way that I treat people I come into contact with every day, it’s the model Joe Kirkman taught me,” Beck said. “I feel like whatever I am as a man is in large part due to him.”

Moore, who is 31 and now works for Mountain Valley Hospice & Palliative Care, said she launched the Facebook page after learning of Kirkman’s death in 2005. She, and others, Moore would learn, felt a need to express their thoughts in the wake of his loss.

“I started it because I wanted all of us to get together and discuss all our fond memories,” Moore said.

A check Sunday of the public-content Facebook page, “In Loving Memory of Joe Kirkman,” revealed numerous postings.

Moore said she and other students in a class for the academically gifted under Kirkman in third-grade, along with another AG math class for those in grades 4-6, thought they were pretty smart.

“But he never ceased to challenge us — he always kept it interesting and kept it fun,” said Moore, adding that this is something she’ll always remember about Kirkman. “He certainly was a great teacher.”

Beck is sad for those students who will never get to experience the gifts offered by a man struck down in his mid-50s by cancer. When Kirkman died five years ago, the former student “felt like the world was going to miss out,” he recalled.

“I can’t say enough good things about him,” Beck said. “He was a remarkable man.”

Contact Tom Joyce at tjoyce@mtairynews.com or at 719-1924.