By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
July 24, 2003

A native of Templeton gives the gift of her knowledge in Mississippi helping children EXCEL.

Sister Myra Weitl has been a teacher in the EXCEL program in Calhoun City, Miss. since 1995.

"Sister Nancy Shrek is from Templeton also and she had worked in the Okolona (Miss.) EXCEL. She talked to me one summer and asked if I would be interested in coming down," said Sister Myra. "I went down over Easter vacation just to take a look at it and to see what I could offer because I was teaching in the regular classroom in Arcadia at the time. I found that it was something that I felt that I could do. I could contribute to the education of the children in Mississippi."

She and another sister started the program with a summer school portion. They mainly helped children with reading and math because that is what they felt the children were in most need of at the time.

"I am considered the head teacher in the EXCEL program in Calhoun City. EXCEL first started in Okolona so we are considered EXCEL number two," said Sister Myra. "It is mainly to help the students keep up on their homework and understand what they have learned in school."

This EXCEL program assists about 45 students each day through Sister Myra's teaching and support. She helps first through sixth graders with their homework after school. If they are in seventh through twelfth, the principal lets them go to the EXCEL center during the day during their study hall to receive help. The program is facilitated in a double-wide trailer in the high school parking lot that was allowed by the superintendent of education in Calhoun County.

"It's mainly just to help them get their homework done," said Sister Myra. "Parents are working and don't have the time to help them or there are some that can't help them particularly when math comes up into the upper areas. It's mainly just to help the children to keep up daily and to encourage them to keep in school and realize that they can make it."

The EXCEL program not only guides the students through their homework, it helps them develop their self-esteem as well. After school there are two sessions, one right after school for an hour and a half, and after a half hour break another session is offered.

"When they first come in, we form a little circle and we call that our self-esteem," said Sister Myra. "It lasts for about 10 to 15 minutes. We usually talk about what good things happened during the day first, to build them up. Then I give them the opportunity to talk about whatever bad things happened, if someone got picked on or something, and how they can handle that. It's giving them ways to handle their feelings rather then just fighting."

An average of five to six students achieve the honor roll every six weeks and the report cards go up. Things people send to Sister Myra go into a "treasure box." The students are allowed to choose a gift from the box when they receive a higher grades in all subjects or are on the honor roll.

"It's an incentive for them to really strive to get a better education," said Sister Myra. "When I first got down there, I realized I was in a total area of Baptists and Methodists, no Catholics. I hesitated to talk about God because I was considered a teacher not a preacher.

"As time went on, I found out that their attending of church and their talking about God was constant. Even in our self-esteem program it comes to a point when one of the best things is to pray about it rather than to fight or to walk away. They need to tell themselves that they are important and that God made them and whatever they do is the best for them."

Sister Myra travels 30 miles every Sunday to go to church in another town where she serves a Eucharistic minister and a lector.

"That's what I found quite different when I first got down here," said Sister Myra. "I taught most of my life in Iowa where I could just walk across the street every morning and go to Mass, but I only get to church on the weekend."

She taught previously in the Diocese of Sioux City at Alton, Remsen and Arcadia. She went to grade school and high school in Templeton.

Sister Myra entered the St. Francis of Dubuque community in 1957 and has been serving people throughout her religious life.

"I would say the school system and being taught by sisters my whole life made me want to do the same things they were doing in helping children to learn," said Sister Myra.