LISD Mourns The Loss of Two Well-Known Teachers

            Monterey lost Coach Reese Fleming on Monday, and on Friday its going to be hard for the Plainsmen to hit the field as they play Lubbock High in one of their biggest games.

            Both teams will be wearing tribute seals on their helmets in memory of Coach Fleming, but win or lose for the Plainsmen it's going to be har as they grieve the loss of their coach.

"It took us all completely by surprise."

            Monterey High Principal Jack Purkeypile said the loss of 46-year-old Coach Reese Fleming has hit the school hard.

"Things happen," he said. "but you don't plan for something like this."

            Purkeypile said they knew Coach Fleming wasn't feeling well, but when they received the news that he had died on Monday he says he immediately informed the students.

"We're being forth right with our kids," said Purkeypile, "and providing them with shoulders to lean on."

            Especially the Plainsmen football team.

"The kids knew we were in a tough situation and they knew we were grieving, they are hurting," he said, "people tell you, you need to keep it normal for the kids and do all the things that are all normal, but the students know that deaths not normal. Death doesn't feel normal when a teacher dies and so we don't ignore that."

            Lubbock ISD is mourning the loss of not only Coach Fleming, but also Overton Elementary art teacher David Wragg.

"He will be very, very missed," said their Principal Ann Archer.

            Archer said just like Monterey, they are trying to comfort their students.

"We encourage the children to write letter and draw pictures," she said, "and we've established a memorial in the main hallway of our campus and it has all kind of things devoted to Mr. Wragg."

            32-year-old David Wragg passed away, just two days before Coach Fleming, after a three year battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

"When we got word of his passing this weekend it was just a devastating blow," said Archer.

"Mr. Wragg was probably one of the most loved teachers I've ever met in my life, he truly was one of those people who made everyone comfortable, made everyone know how much he loved them and cared for them."

            Both Mr. Wragg and Coach Fleming, two respectable men, who were clearly taken from L.I.S.D. too soon.

"Loved his job and wanted to be no where else but there," said Archer,
and the children knew it and knew how much he cared for them."

"We just what our kids to know that we lost somebody we loved that loved them," said Purkeypile, "and it's OK for us to be sad."

Both Coach Fleming and Mr. Wragg will be sincerely missed by their L.I.S.D. families, as well as their own families. Both men are survived by their wives and daughters.