Hey, Meek! Have a heart, will ya?
Bob Meek, the theater and choir director at Ridgefield High School, has some kind of special gift for encouraging kids while also getting as silly as a kid himself. The result, admiring parent Rita Flatz said, is that everybody just calls him “Meek.” As in, “Hey, Meek!” No first name required.
He’s also got a special gift for easing talented wallflowers into the spotlight where they absolutely “blossom,” Flatz added. It’s largely thanks to Meek that her twin daughters won full scholarships to study theater at Grand Canyon University, she said.
That’s after Meek encouraged one of them not to stay offstage just because her twin was already on it. “You are doing yourself a discredit,” he told the girl, according to Flatz. “Don’t give up something you’re good at. I want you in my choir.” It was a turning point in her life, Flatz said.
Friends and fans are hoping to lavish on Meek a special gift of their own. That’s because Meek, who first started noticing some odd symptoms a couple of years ago, has been on the waiting list for a heart transplant for a while — and earlier this week, according to his wife, Liza, his doctors admitted him to OHSU Hospital and bumped him up to highest status on the wait list. That wasn’t unexpected, she said.