Karon Cheek, a teacher and drama club director at Franklin Community Middle School, reads cards she received from students during treatment for ovarian cancer in February 2020. She died on May 8, 2020. The middle school is dedicating its costume room in Cheek’s honor during a ceremony at 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
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The sense of loss could be felt in the classrooms and hallways of Franklin Community Middle School.
Students, teachers and staff had come back from pandemic remote learning in the fall of 2020 prepared for change. Though new precautions and regulations were in place, it was at least a chance to return to something resembling normal.
But while classes were out, the school had lost one of its own. Karon Cheek, a longtime English teacher and drama director, had died from ovarian cancer.
Four years later, the middle school community has a chance to let those wounds heal.
“It was really hard to come back after she passed. She was just gone, physically gone,” said Shanna Gaunt, a fellow teacher and one of Cheek’s close friends. “This, to me, means a piece of her will always be here.”
To honor a colleague, friend and teacher to impacted countless students, FCMS is dedicating the costume room in its theatre department to Cheek. The move is a way to honor her memory in a place where she changed the lives of so many people.
The school community will dedicate the new costume room at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, unveiling a special plaque and commiserating together about Cheek’s outsized legacy. The public is welcome.
“She had such a huge imagination, and really embraced that in lots of different ways. One of the ways was to be the drama director. She loved seeing kids shine on the stage,” said Rita Holman, middle school principal. “So the dressing up and the theatrics of all it led to the decision to do the costume closet, where they keep all the wardrobe and everything for the shows.”
Cheek was Franklin through and through. She graduated from Franklin Community High School in 1985, and then from Franklin College in 2003.
For 20 years, she worked for Franklin Community Schools, including as an assistant and a bus driver for special services. But the bulk of her career — 18 years — was spent teaching at the middle school.
Gaunt taught side-by-side with Cheek for 15 years. The pair had a close relationship, not just centered around teaching but outside the school walls as well.
“We’d see each other every day. We not only share curriculum things, but also shared about our families. We got very close,” she said.
For all of the impressions Cheek made in the classroom, she was equally as impactful for her work as the middle school’s theater director.
“For a lot of students, their first experience on the stage was here in middle school. That set the tone for a lot of their future endeavors, both in high school and beyond. She had a huge impact on them,” said Allyson Sever, who taught with Cheek.
Cheek was a constant presence throughout the middle school, until in 2019, when she was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer.
Initially she was determined to teach through treatment. But after the first round of chemotherapy, it became clear she would not be able to. She worked with Holman to take leave for the 2019-2020 school year. She went through six rounds of chemotherapy, before having a debulking surgery to remove cancerous tissue throughout her abdomen.
The operation was followed by three more rounds of chemotherapy. A final round was scheduled to start in March 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced her to pause treatment.
On May 8, 2020, she died in her Franklin home.
The loss was devastating for the middle school community, amplified by the fact that the pandemic prevented people from gathering to grieve and remember Cheek.
“The family didn’t even really have a chance to have a memorial or a funeral, and obviously the students, since they were virtual, they didn’t have a chance to recognize all of the contributions they had in their lives,” Sever said.
From that point on, Cheek’s colleagues and friends have searched for a way to properly memorialize her. The idea of naming the costume room at the school after her came to the forefront.
“After she passed, one of her family members mentioned how meaningful something like that would be for Karon and her legacy. So it was kind of at the prompting of a family member,” Holman said.
Dedicating the costume room to Cheek comes with a symmetry with her students, as well. This year’s graduating class of seniors at Franklin Community High School were the last class of students to have Cheek as a teacher, when they were seventh graders.
“So we really wanted to do something to recognize her while those kids are still in high school that had her,” Sever said.
FCMS staff wrote a letter outlining their idea, and presented it to the school board in February. In March, the idea was approved.
“It’s a way to leave a permanent, physical mark on a place where she left such a legacy,” Holman said. “We can leave behind a little something.”
The entire community — from former students and colleagues to friends and family — is invited to Sunday’s dedication. Everyone will meet in the school’s auditorium, where former students will share their memories about Cheek. Staff members also plan to speak about their friend, and Gaunt has created a slide show encompassing Cheek’s myriad activities and interests with the school.
Afterwards, people will migrate to the costume room for the unveiling of the plaque. A dessert reception will follow.
In addition to the plaque mounted at the costume room, the middle school will be installing a memorial bench in Cheek’s name. The hope is to have it in place in time for the annual Senior Walk, where seniors take one last tour of their school buildings before graduation.
With the dedication, organizers are adamant about ensuring that Cheek’s importance to the middle school is maintained for future generations.
“Our drama club has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, but all of these kids don’t know here. Now, there will be something there where they’ll be able to see a picture of her and her name, and maybe ask questions — Who was Mrs. Cheek?” Holman said.
IF YOU GO
Karon Cheek Costume Room Dedication
When: 6:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Franklin Community Middle School, 625 Grizzly Cub Drive
What: The event will start with a ceremony inside the school’s auditorium, before the unveiling of a plaque honoring Cheek at the costume room. A dessert reception will follow the dedication.
Who: The event is open to the public.
