There are certain people in life that stand out for their Christian ability to help others. In my life, that someone is Thelma Luckey.

It all started some 50 years ago at Spencer’s Chicken Shack. While trying to balance my “to-go” boxes with three small children, Ms. Luckey emphatically helped me to the car. I knew then that this woman was somebody special.

As some 20 years passed Ms. Luckey served in the U.S. Armed Forces in Desert Storm, returned home to adopt and properly educate an orphan and her beloved grandson. In her “spare time,” she drove a bus for the Rowan-Salisbury School System. This is where our lives’ paths crossed again — at North Rowan High School as I, teaching Early Childhood Education, needed an intelligent, trustworthy bus driver to transport my students to childcare centers.

Ms. Luckey was chosen for her outstanding work ethic. Students and faculty alike knew we could count on her to help whenever and whatever the need might be — gregariously helping students, assisting teachers and even preparing special faculty dinners, as another talent was her excellent cooking skills, which had been taught to her starting in childhood by her Native American mother.

After we both retired, Ms. Luckey wanted to help her son with steady work, so the twosome became entrepreneurs, with Thelma’s Down Home Cooking Restaurant. When Luckey was not honoring veterans or catering, she was cooking at the restaurant and enjoying chatting with customers, whom she treated like family.

Life never ceases to challenge one’s optimism and compassion for mankind; that is true for Lucky also. But this lady’s mission never “hides under a bushel.” Luckey will always be found loving her Lord while helping others.

Bonnie Troxler Graham

Linwood