Retired Virginia teacher hand-delivers 30-year-old memories to students: 'I really did make a difference'

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — When asked to describe their favorite teacher, former Chesterfield County students didn't choose the person who taught their favorite subject.

They chose the teacher whose kindness is still felt three decades later.

That teacher is retired educator Tricia Johnson.

"I just love my kids. Got attached to them," Johnson said. "My heart was just to teach them everything I knew and kind of help raise them up."

Johnson taught at Matoaca Elementary School in Chesterfield County from 1988 until she retired in 2004.

Now, she's still on a mission to make her former students smile again — this time through old memories she discovered in her attic.

"I found this huge tub of pictures, photo albums. I can't just throw them away. It just clicked in my brain, you know what? I need to divide them all up and I need to see if I can find these students," Johnson said.

That moment turned into a labor of love.

Johnson spent countless hours sorting and printing pictures and putting them in order.

Then came the harder part — finding her former students.

"Since I'm not on Facebook, it's been a little difficult," she said.

From there, she set out to hand-deliver each person's piece of the 30-year-old time capsule, even including copies of their kindergarten signatures.

"That's how y'all wrote your names on the back of my yearbook," she said to a former student during one delivery.

Johnson also added a personal poem for each student — words that reflect the depth of her admiration for each of them.

So far, she has reconnected with almost 200 of her former students. Her goal is to reach all 400.

"It makes me excited to know that I really did make a difference and that I truly have helped some kids to become all that can be," Johnson said. "My goal is to reach them all, and I hope I will before I go to heaven."