02/06/2025
🦢Twenty-one years ago I began this journey to be a Davis Dyslexia facilitator and after completing the first workshop in San Francisco my training shifted to Dallas, Texas. I'd hoped San Fran would be the center for the rest of my studies with Davis, and was so disappointed I had to go to Dallas.
Funny how things work out! The move to Dallas/Plano was absolutely for the best! In Dallas I'd meet fellow trainee, Dr. Ann Swan.
Ann introduced herself to others like this, "Hi, I'm Dr. Swan, swan like the bird!" she laughed while her over-lapped hands fluttered her swan impression! For the dozen trainees in our Dallas class, Ann happily greeted each one of us with her 'winged' trademark and it quickly became ingrained in my head!
Her amazing grasp on the tools and procedures of the Davis Program, along with her warm personality immediately put her at the head of our class! Ann and I would get to know each other well as we studied together during and after class many nights.
It was during the final stages of our training program when I arrived in Dallas for the beginning to a two week session when I received this message from Ann.
She let me know she would not be in Dallas for at least the first week, maybe not any of the remaining sessions. Her cancer had returned. We were all devastated.
The second week of training came along and Ann was still too ill to attend.
But earlier that summer Ann and I worked on our brochures to introduce our new businesses as Davis facilitators.
Do you remember the old Macaroni Grill 1 restaurants? The ones with kraft-paper covered tables and crayons for drawing and creating? In our early training days in Dallas trainees would meet together at the near-by Macaroni Grill hashing out thoughts on logos and businesses names. We covered the tables with our ideas.
OnPoint Learning was one of our first business names thought of, it was Ann's idea.
One day in the early winter of 2004 Ann called me from her Florida home to tell me she was too ill to continue with her plan of opening an office after we were officially licensed. Maybe there was a glimmer of hope that she could recover, she added, to console me.
Her next thought totally overwhelmed me: she insisted that the name OnPoint Learning become mine. That I would carry on the OnPoint name. With this humbling gesture her legacy would continue, the Ann "Swan" legacy.🦢🦢🦢