Having the discipline to succeed in life

Christmas is a time of giving and the Champion family of North Woodmere received the best present as U.S. Air Force Tech Sgt. Takeem Champion, husband to Melissa, and father to Arielle and Camryn, returned home for a two-week holiday leave after serving the last six months in the Middle East.

“This is a great Christmas present, my holiday has been made,” said Melissa, after her husband spoke to Arielle’s sixth grade Social Studies class at Lawrence Middle School five days before Christmas day.

Arielle and her mother were out Christmas shopping until almost midnight on Dec. 19. When they came home from Roosevelt Field Mall, there was a huge surprise waiting for them.

“It was a wonderful surprise,” said Arielle, who has only spoken to and seen her dad on FaceTime, the video phone program, within the past half year. “I cried, I said, ‘I missed you.’”

The Champion family shared their holiday gift with Kelly Dowling’s class as Champion arrived with his wife and youngest child, a student at the Number Five School, for a question and answer session.

Champion, who made a point of shaking each student’s hand, told the students that he sat in the same building and graduated from Lawrence High School in 1998. He emphasized that getting an education is important to their futures before deciding what they want to do in life.

“I was a busy body,” Champion told the youngsters, “I had a guidance counselor who said, ‘you are a lot smarter than you are’, she said I needed discipline.”

Diane Johnson guided Champion through high school and then he made the decision to join the military. For nearly 14 years, Champion, first in the military police, and now as a community liaison in the Middle East, has served his country.

In answering questions, Champion displayed his flair for public relations by relating to the students and making comparisons they would understand. From explaining where he does his job of bridging the cultural divide, “We meet in local places such as an open café or a restaurant,” to teaching them the time difference between here and there. Looking at his watch, Champion said it was 9:30 p.m. in the Middle East, when it was 12:30 p.m. in Lawrence.

Ryan Levey thought he was “really luck” and it was “really cool” to meet a genuine serviceman in uniform. “We are lucky because we got someone from the military to talk to us,” said Levey, adding he learned that the military does more than fight.

Levey’s classmate Jacelyn Funes also thought Champion’s visit was “very cool.” “Because they are protecting our country,” Funes said, adding that her older brother David, a Lawrence High School sophomore, wants to join the military.

Champion pointed out that Lawrence schools helped prepare him for his career. “At Lawrence, you have that environment of discipline,” he said.