Keepsake pin honors memory of late teacher who collapsed in classroom
She was their sunshine. With her bright smile and quick sense of humor, special education teacher Abby Ohl lit up Virgil I. Grissom Middle School in the short time she worked there.
When she died unexpectedly Oct. 12, teachers, students and the entire Tinley Park community were stunned.
Now that same grieving community is choosing to remember Ohl with a commemorative yellow pin shaped like a sunburst with a pink heart inside.
“We think about her all the time. She was our sunshine,” said Grissom Principal Deborah Broadwell. “We want to remember Abby, and this is something we all think she would approve of.”
The $3 pin is attached to a small card that reads, “When you wear this pin let your love shine bright in honor of Ms. Abby Ohl.”
All of the schools in Kirby District 140 sold the pins last week, Broadwell said. The public can purchase them from 5 to 7 p.m. during a community sale Monday at Grissom, 17000 S. 80th Ave., Tinley Park.
Proceeds from the sales will be used to fund a Kirby Education Association scholarship to be awarded to a Victor J. Andrew High School graduate who plans to pursue a career in special education, Broadwell said.
Ohl, 25, collapsed in her class-
room while helping students on a Friday afternoon.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office said the cause of death is still undetermined. A graduate of St. George Catholic School and Andrew, she was remembered by coworkers and friends as a young woman who loved to laugh, dance, watch “The Gilmore Girls” and help at Special Olympics. She also helped run Student Council at Grissom.
She was preceded in death by an older brother, Taylor, who also died unexpectedly in 2002 when he was 14. Survived by her parents, Dennis and Sue, and a brother, Thomas, a U.S. Marine, Ohl was said to have credited her mother, a teacher at District 140’s Keller School, with inspiring her to go into education.
Illinois state
Sen. Michael Hastings (D-19) also plans to recognize Ohl through a death resolution.
During his annual visit to Grissom Dec. 7 to talk with students about the Constitution and government workings, Hastings said several of Ohl’s colleagues talked with him about the late teacher’s “profound impact on the school and her students.”
Hastings said, “It’s unfortunate how she died suddenly and out of the blue.”
Death resolutions, he said, are reserved for people who’ve made an impact on the community.
“You read the background of the individual who passed away and the individual becomes memorialized and they’re forever remembered,” he said.
Hastings said he plans to read a piece about Ohl on the Senate floor in late January, likely Jan. 30.
“I’ll read it out loud and tell people how important she was,” Hastings said, “and she’ll forever be memorialized in the state of Illinois.”