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Hayden Jopling

Ms. Kennedy

English Comp 1113

26 February 2023

The World's Greatest Teacher

Danny Griffin was a High School teacher in an interstate town known as Mustang,

Oklahoma for the better part of 38 years. He taught three classes and oversaw a handful of

extracurricular activities. Having a total of five declared majors he was well versed enough

academically to teach anything from chemistry to creative writing, but AgriScience was his

bread and butter. He has a genuine heart for teaching and sharing his knowledge with the next

generations. To know him is to love him; His personality is unwittingly kind. I have known

Mr.Griffin since the third grade. I grew up showing livestock, and if you showed livestock in

Mustang, Mr.Griffin was the most important man you knew. Naturally, entering high school I

enrolled in his Intro to Agricultural Business I course. Many students took this course

thinking it would be like most other Agricultural classes. Simply a blowoff course. They were

wrong in thinking so. Mr.Griffin, or Griff as he preferred, meant business. He knew he had a

limited amount of time each day to teach his students the building blocks of business

financials and agricultural sciences. He never demanded anyone's respect but rather gained it

through connections and trust. He allowed the tired student working two jobs to nap in his

office during class, so long as the work got done. He would keep up with the events of the

social butterfly of the class and showed genuine interest in what they had to say. He would

take lunch in the computer lab with quiet pupils, eating in comfortable silence so they knew

someone cared. Griff has an impact on everyone he taught in one way or another, and I doubt

I’m the first or the last to write about him as a favorite teacher. Even though his classes were

not always the easiest, he had the biggest positive impact on my life out of any of my
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teachers. He always knew how to make everyone smile even on rougher days. He is a man of

true character from a time vastly different, but all too much the same as my own. He is the

main reason I know how to properly manage my time, and how to be humble when it's not

easy to be. Thanks to him I know how to care for animals, and how to give back to nature. He

helped me realize what I was passionate about, and for all of those reasons, and many more,

Danny Griffin may singlehandedly be the world's greatest teacher.

Raising livestock will make an individual realize the significance of a single minute.

High school is a busy time in life for young students, so adding raising a living creature to the

mix can create a bit of chaos. Griff knew this yet continued to encourage students to give it a

whirl. He would sit down with students and help them create daily schedules for taking care

of their animals. He was not the type to just expect teens to know how to manage their time

correctly, rather he would help them learn to manage their time through raising pigs and

sheep. It may seem a bit odd to some, but it worked and it worked well. Griff knew what

most did not. The livestock portion of Ag class wasn't about winning competitions. It was

about learning vital skills to be an adult. He managed to not only teach these life skills

through livestock but to also make it fun for his students. Not everyone is a winner, but Griff

made everyone feel as though the time spent raising the animals was not a waste. He made

each and every upset-losing student showman look deeper into the purpose of raising

livestock. Yes, winning money at a stock show is great, but the lessons learned through the

self-sacrifice of your free time as a youth were just as great of a reward. Just because you

won at a stock show with Danny Griffin doesn't mean you escaped his teachings either.

Humility was almost a passion project for Griff. He never discouraged a well-earned

celebration, but celebrations should not be inspired by another's grief. In other words, Griff

didn’t like a bragger. He thought that there was no winner without humility. If he caught you

bragging he wouldn't stop you, but the wise old man would not soon forget. Did you know
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that having students build fences without pay breaks labor laws? Did you also know that

having an active FFA member build fences for “community service” does not? Danny Griffin

did. A good deed was the required price for a bad deed in his eyes. He always made sure to

let you know that he was not mad or angry with you, just that actions have natural

consequences. A not so subtle introduction to the real world, rather an effective one. He was

practical with his punishment. He saw no point in assigning detention when he could have

you plant 300 tomato plants for the greenhouse, or prune the trees for elderly residents

nearby. His love for nature always made an appearance in his teachings.

Never had I ever met someone passionate about trees, let alone passionate enough to

get a degree in their study, until I met Griff that is. On the first day of class, every single year,

he would introduce himself to new peers. Every year he led with the same “get to know you”

introduction. He listed his hobbies, talked about his family, gave a brief summary of the

careers he’s had, etc. Towards the end of the class he would discuss trees and his true love for

forestry (he’d never admit it, but I'm certain that, with how passionately he talked about

forestry, the only reason he became a teacher was that his body could no longer handle the

conditions after his first back surgery). If you ever had a question about anything

trees-related, Danny Griffin was the man you sought out. He issued a challenge every year at

the end of that first day of class. Bring a leaf he couldn’t name and win one hundred dollars

cash. No stipulations. To my knowledge, it was a bet he's never lost. He sure knew how to get

a teenager interested in leaves. He would do this deliberately every year in order to set up

multiple opportunities to discuss nature and turn it into a meaningful lecture. Roughly two to

three times a month a leaf would be brought in, and a proud student, confident they just won

the jackpot, would quickly be told the name of the leaf without error. Griff had a story ready

at all times concerning just about any leaf or tree you could imagine. He would talk about the

species of tree and the impact it has on the ecosystem. He would tell the tales of human
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intervention with that type of tree. How it was harvested, and what it was harvested for. He

would talk about the growth process and if it was a native species, how the U.S Forestry

Services cared for the population of the species. That was always his favorite part of the

story. In hindsight the lectures he would give were repetitive, but that was the magic of his

teaching style. It never felt like we had heard the same old tale twice, all the while we were

subconsciously being taught just how important it was for humans to give back to nature if

we wanted to keep the simple beauties of life, such as trees, around. His joy brought on by

trees showed us students that a passion doesn’t have to be complex. It could be as simple as a

blackjack or mesquite tree.

Growing up I had thought I would go the route my father and his father had gone of

petroleum engineering or oilfield-related work. I had this ideology stuck in my head until one

day Griff asked me a simple question, “Does the world of oil seem fulfilling to you?” It was

after class. We had just had a college representative from an Aerospace and Aviation institute

visit to give a speech. He had asked this after hearing me talk over my plan for college with

our visitor. Now, this was something I hadn't considered. I had thought of everything

possible. Price of college. Where I could work during school. The school I wanted to attend.

The companies I’d try to intern at. I had thought of everything besides one simple thing.

Would this be a passionate career or a dull life story of someone who didn’t take risks? His

question sent me spiraling and ended in him allowing me to realize, on my own, that I cannot

stand the field of oil and natural gas. He saw before anyone else that my goals in life were to

always be learning and to make the world better while I’m an occupant of it. I could do

neither in the oilfield. After many late-running talks and discussions, he helped me land on

mechanical engineering and physics. He came prepared with the knowledge of possible

careers and helped me replan my future. He wasn’t required to, he wasn’t paid to, and he was

pressured to help students to the extent he did. He, without excuse, just did. Most teachers
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would not go the extra mile, let alone the extra ten miles Griff took for his students. That

speaks volumes of his character.

For everything, He did for his students he never asked them for anything in return. He

never had to. His students had respect for him only earned by true leadership. By the end of

your time in Danny Griffins’ program you would not be the same as you were before his

program. He changed the lives of all of his students in some form or fashion. Some of us had

the chance to learn the value of time in a day, how to hold your head high when you lose, and

how to be humble in your winnings. Others learned why nature needs to be protected and

cared for. Some, myself included, owe their current success to a single agriculture teacher

from Mustang, Oklahoma. Danny Griffin may not have been the world's most prized teacher,

but to his students, he was the world's greatest teacher.