An Inspiring 5th-Grade Teacher

By Thomas Maier | STAFF WRITER

September 13, 2001

James Debeuneure, a 58-year-old elementary school teacher from suburban Washington, died while making the kind of effort to which he dedicated much of his adult life - helping children learn.

On Tuesday, the jet carrying Debeuneure and dozens of other passengers, on a flight from Dulles Airport outside Washington to Los Angeles, was hijacked by terrorists and crashed into the Pentagon. His family says Debeuneure was headed to California to attend a National Geographic program designed to help teachers in presenting geography and science issues.

"He was going to learn as much as he could about rivers and oceansides, so he could bring it back for his kids," his son, Jacques Debeuneure, 32, said yesterday. Speaking from the family's home in Upper Marlboro, Md., Jacques recalled the extra efforts that his father always made for his fifth-grade students at the Ketcham Elementary School in southeast Washington.

"My dad was a good man, who loved to teach kids," Jacques said, his voice cresting with emotion. "He'd give his own lunch to those kids in his class when they'd forget their own lunch. He was a very compassionate man whose focus was educating youngsters. He wanted to make a difference in their lives."

In 1998, Debeuneure was noted in a Washington Post article about a National Geographic-funded program to help revitalize geography curriculums in U.S. classrooms. Ketcham school officials could not be reached for comment yesterday. But the Post's article said the vast majority of the money was spent on training teachers and distributing a wide range of instructional materials, and included a photo of Debeuneure with other teachers helping to make geography more fun for students.

Jacques said his father worked in other jobs - one with a jewelry firm, another with the local telephone company - before he found his passion in teaching about a decade ago. Several years ago, Debeuneure separated from his wife, Linda, who has since died, and he had lived with his sister in recent years, said Jacques.

Jacques, who has two siblings, said he and his family cannot begin to fully express their feelings about losing his father. "I'm very hardened by this, and very frustrated and terrified - a whole range of emotions," he said. The night before he left, he told me of his plans [with National Geographic] and we both said, 'I love you.'"