Teachers' and preachers' first names

Many elementary school teachers are used to being referred to only as "Miss Smith" or "Mrs. Jones." But you should never, ever send something to the newspaper about yourself or your class without including your first name. We can't refer to someone without using both names.

This is a problem for us all year long, but especially during the times when we're receiving Santa letters, ghost story entries or Mother's Day tributes in batches from local schools. Fortunately, we can usually look up the first name on the school's web site, but when we get to the entry deadline and we're processing large numbers of classes within the space of just a few days, that wasted time adds up. Please, teachers, help us out by always including your first name when you submit something to the newspaper.

The same rule applies to church announcements; we will occasionally get a church announcement telling us that "Brother Smith" or "Rev. Jones" will be the guest speaker. And in that case, there's usually no way for us to look up the name.