Everyone comes into our lives for a reason. The death of those who have taught us and helped us develop in ways we were not aware, we never thought possible, is a stifling experience. Not only for the young students, unfamiliar with the idea that someone so close could be so far away in only a matter of hours, but for those so deeply affected by that person’s presence it has changed many of the ways they see their future developing.

    In the last few years ACMA has known the feeling of loss well. Sophmore Austin Miller’s passing left a hole in the student body that only an early death could. As students in middle and high school, quite a few of us are not used to the idea that the people around us may not be there tomorrow. To look at the person sitting next to us in class, or the teacher we have had for years standing at the projector, and think about all the ways the world could separate us from them now is too painful for us to seriously consider.

    Izumi Neitzel was an admirable changing force: impassioned and caring. Even to students who never had the pleasure of her as a teacher, she was a bright beacon of charisma and enthusiasm. She was the type of teacher to hug you and say it was okay when you apologized for not having the homework done. On days she was sick, she would still fight to be at school. Many students were not aware until late 2010 that she was deeply ill. Through it all, she kept teaching until it simply was not possible anymore. Neitzel could have been losing her voice and she would still come in. No one had ever seen a class silence itself so obediently until they witnessed the way people respected her.

     "I would pass her when I walked on the trail. She'd be with her husband. She said to me once, 'You know, I thought I was the healthiest person, and now I have this.' That was the kind of person she was, just 'and now I have this,'" said staff member Wil Andrews. "It's a cliché, you know, that it always happens to the nice people. Well, it did. It happened to a nice person. She was a great woman. I cried like a baby when I heard she passed."

     Neitzel’s husband told her students that when she was diagnosed in December, she viewed it as simply another adventure in their life that they had to face. She invested herself in her job up to the last moment, finally allowing herself to relax on the last grading day of the semester. 

     Neitzel was married for 25 years. Initially, they lived in Japan where her husband, Greg Neitzel, worked in the fishing industry. When he was ready to retire, he asked her what she wanted to do, and she told him she wanted to be a Japanese language teacher in the United States school system. She did just that, and settled down at ACMA, drawn to our school by its lack of sports. Fellow teachers and her husband remember fondly how excited and receptive she was to learning new things about teaching and the United States.

    There is no missing the way she was - and still is - important to the people she affected. Izumi Neitzel could make you feel special and strong when you were struggling to understand and always offered her time to help - time not only to students but to her fellow faculty. Megan Metz told the crowd that gathered for her memorial after school on February 8 about all the times Neitzel would sit with the visual art teachers during prep periods and marvel at the work done by students, getting distracted from her own work to see what the other teachers were working on.  

    Mikki Benson remembers the times Neitzel talked about taking her Japanese Four class out to do karaoke, and at the start of the 2010 school year she was excited after earning her food handler's license to start bringing in Japanese food she had personally cooked for the classes. The extra mile was part of her road map, and she always strove to take it. Between constantly doing her best to help her students not only get good grades but to always understand what she taught in the clearest way possible, to teaching students who could not even get into her class, Izumi Neitzel worked to inspire and drive her students towards success and make it as fun as possible along the way.

    “While my interest in Japanese language and culture was sparked in third grade, it was Izumi-sensei who truly gave me my passion. It wasn’t just her teaching style that inspired me but her personality as a whole. I wanted to become a part of a culture that this amazing woman came from,” remembers senior Hayley Bridwell.

    Bridwell is working with teacher Elizabeth Jeffery to set up a memorial in honor of Neitzel. She wants to plant a sakura tree on ACMA grounds, being that the blossoms were Izumi's favorite flower. Once the details for the memorial are ironed out with the school, Bridwell hopes to collect donations from anyone interested in contributing to purchase the tree and a plaque for Neitzel. A wound remains in the school's family now where there was once a compassionate and enthusiastic light that burned through the layers of teenage apathy.