Saying goodbye one last time
Jim Hinkle, the boys basketball coach at Jacobs High School, likes to say he has two great loves in his life -- basketball and his wife of almost 38 years, Barb.
Today, one of them is leaving. Barb Hinkle is moving to a nursing home in Carlinville, Ill., where she can get proper care for the Alzheimer's disease that forced her retirement from teaching in 2003, when she was just 53.
On Friday, the teachers, students and friends Hinkle touched during her 27-year career as a kindergarten teacher in Community Unit District 300 stopped into her Algonquin home to say goodbye.
Marla Miller, a retired teacher who lives in West Dundee, recalled working with Hinkle at Kings Road Elementary School, which is no longer in use.
"It was a cohesive group of teachers," Miller said. "She was … so good with the kids."
Hinkle also taught kindergarten at Dundee Highlands Elementary School in West Dundee and later at Neubert and Eastview elementary schools in Algonquin.
Jim Condill remembered how kind Hinkle was even though Condill and Jim Hinkle coached rival basketball squads.
During the games between Jacobs and Crystal Lake Central, "somehow she found a way to come down and say 'hi,'" Condill said. "You just got to admire Jim … for diligently taking care of Barb."
Lindsay McNutt said Hinkle was one of the teachers that inspired her to pursue teaching. McNutt now works with special-needs students at Algonquin Middle School.
"She was one of my favorite teachers," McNutt said. "I looked back at all the teachers I had and asked which ones I'd like to be like, and she was one of them."
Lindsay's mother, Leslie, talked about how precise Hinkle's memory was when Hinkle would bring her cats to the Algonquin Animal Clinic, where Leslie works.
"She remembered all three of my kids," Leslie McNutt said. "She's so warm and genuine. She always had a smile on her face."
Hinkle, wearing a shiny magenta blouse sewn by her mother, was full of energy as she danced across her living room, greeting old friends and enjoying their company for the last time.
"It makes it easier for her mother and me," Jim Hinkle said. "I just hope she remembers it."