Reading and writing have been a big part of Lisa Lowe Stauffer’s life since she first discovered a love of books while a student at Bright. Now, she is an author of a new children’s picture book out this summer called Two By Two, published by Zonderkidz, and she plans to return to Bright in the spring to read to junior pre-kindergarten and pre-kindergarten.
Stauffer came to Bright in fifth grade after her father, Aaron Lowe, began his 23-year tenure as shop teacher, 1964 - 1987. Students during that time may recall the neatness and decorum Mr. Lowe required in his shop class as well as his fondness for rock polishing, music and astronomy. Some alumni may still have the Lowe-tars they made in shop.
Stauffer’s memories of Bright center around the library, which at the time was in the cafeteria, partitioned with a vinyl-like curtain, and the school’s first librarian, Martha Becton. “She was the best,” Stauffer said. “That was when I really fell in love with reading.”
But her interest in children’s books waned while she wrote professionally in her marketing career until her first child was born. “I discovered children’s books again,” she said, and that set off her goal to write books while raising her children, Charlotte and Richard, who are now 25 and 28. Easier said than done. “I have had very good rejections,” she said, noting that publishers seemed to like her novels for middle grades but didn’t have a market for them.
Two By Two, which is a fun take on the Noah’s ark story with animals you may not expect like an anaconda, peacock and kookaburra, is her first book that has been published and sold. (You can find it on Amazon and in some bookstores.) She got the idea while on a retreat to write children’s poems, started rhyming the words while listening to jazz, and the “monkeys took over,” she said, explaining that all told she probably wrote a total of 2,000 words to get a finished product that is only 151 words.
Stauffer lives near Atlanta and spends about half of each day writing, hoping another of her books will catch on in the publishing world. She and her husband, Kirk, also enjoy traveling the world.
Her memories of Bright always circle back to her father. Mr. Lowe and her mother, Mary Ann, are both deceased, but his work and love of Bright is still evident in the reflections of alumni and in the shop itself, where many of his projects are still displayed. Stauffer has an 8-foot-tall Santa he made that looks like the smaller version first created by shop teacher Margaret Austin Johnson more than 50 years ago and still made in shop today.
Before Bright, Mr. Lowe was a piano teacher for the Cadek Conservatory of Music when it was located at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He learned woodworking as a teen while his father worked in furniture manufacturing in North Carolina and a family friend took him on as a sort-of apprentice. A musician, Mr. Lowe made guitars and violins, built a house and could “make or fix anything,” Stauffer said. Mrs. Lowe taught elementary school music and is remembered for pioneering Kodály education in Tennessee. She was inducted into the Tennessee Music Education Association’s Hall of Fame in 2003. They did all this while raising their children: Lyn Fisher, Stauffer and Steven Lowe ’75. Fisher’s children, Rachel Fisher ’99 and Aaron Fisher ’02, graduated from Bright.
After it was announced the previous shop teacher at Bright was retiring, a friend took it upon herself – Stauffer and her siblings do not know who – to schedule a job interview for Mr. Lowe without his permission. She said her father was not sure about teaching young children, but obviously it was not a problem after he was hired. “He loved sharing his knowledge,” Stauffer said. Even today. Mr. Lowe’s telescope, donated by Steven Lowe, is used in the current science classroom.
