Lines of Communication: Danielson says Mandeville High speech class helped build confidence, bolstered leadership skills | St. Tammany community news

The St. Tammany Farmer is producing a monthly series in 2019 that reunites a well-known St. Tammany Parish resident with the teacher who had a significant impact on his or her life. There are some amazing stories to be told about how a caring educator’s past guidance positively affects us all today, and we are delighted to share them.

This month, we talked with Mandeville civic leader Rick Danielson and his high school speech teacher Sue Elkins Terrillion.

— Andrew Canulette, Editor, St. Tammany Farmer

Like most everyone around her, Sue Elkins Terrillion was shocked and saddened on Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorist attacks on American soil changed the course of history.

A speech and theater teacher at Mandeville High School at the time, her job always had been to help students assimilate their feelings and channel them into creative deliveries. For weeks after 9/11, Terrillion worked through her own array of emotions, as well, which was challenging.

The attacks really hit home for Terrillion, however, when she learned that one of her former students was in The Pentagon on 9/11 when an Al Qaeda hijacker purposely flew a Boeing 757 into the side of the building, killing nearly 200 people in the plane and on the ground.

Rick Danielson, a member of Mandeville High’s Class of 1988, was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force and in meetings at the Pentagon on 9/11. Moments after evacuating, he listened as his boss, a three-star general in charge of Air Force operations in the Middle East, began planning the groundwork for what would become Operation Enduring Freedom.

Four days later, Danielson was part of a deployment heading for Afghanistan.

Not that he thought of it in the heat of that moment, but Danielson today recognizes that the building blocks for what made him an effective communicator in the military were fashioned at Mandeville High, in general, and in Terrillion’s class, in particular.

After spending nine years in the Air Force, Danielson still puts the lessons he learned in his senior year speech class to good use. When he served as a Mandeville councilman at large or when he ran for mayor of his hometown, he could, in part, thank Terrillion for helping polish his public-speaking skills. And as a professional financial adviser, clients appreciate someone who speaks with confidence. Danielson credits Terrillion’s teaching for helping him in that arena, too.

He said a pivotal moment in his life was a speech he delivered to the Mandeville High student body when running for vice president of the MHS Student Council back in 1987.

“That was the first big speech I ever gave,” he said. “I wasn’t as comfortable speaking in public at the time, so I just focused on a few people in the gym, rather than the fact there were 1,200 people in there. But it turned out to be a great experience for me. I always had some level of confidence, but when you take a chance to run for something like that, it brings you to a different level.

“Then taking Mrs. Sue’s class in my senior year, it really solidified things,” Danielson said. “It was an important time for me and it most definitely helped me with where I was going.”

Terrillion remembers Danielson being a confident, articulate and caring student when he transferred from St. Paul’s to Mandeville to begin his junior year of high school. He already was excelling in the classroom and in numerous athletic pursuits, but he longed to be with his core group of friends on the other side of Interstate 12, which prompted the move.

Terrillion noticed it didn’t take long for Danielson to become a leader at Mandeville, either.

“He’s a born leader,” she said. “Teachers can tell which students are going to lead. With him, you just knew.”

Danielson said Terrillion’s humanistic teaching style helped students grow individually and collectively. As someone who envisioned himself as a public servant, whether it be in the military, political office or nonprofit work, Terrillion’s speech class was a real eye-opener.

“I remember she always treated everyone in the class like an adult,” Danielson said. “She allowed us to step outside our comfort zone … . Her class never was about a textbook or a test. It was about learning to communicate with other people. That was our test.”

That certainly was true when Danielson was given his first military assignment.

“I was an officer just out of grad school, and basically I was told here are the keys and here are your people,” Danielson said. “So now, you have to represent yourself in front of people who have been doing this longer than you. You have to exude confidence and a positive attitude so they believe ‘This guy has it under control. Everything is going to be OK.’

“I still try to measure what I say and how it needs to be said,” Danielson said. “Mrs. Sue helped me understand that. Some people open their mouths and it’s ready, shoot, aim and with no thought process. She helped us coordinate our thoughts and our words knowing how important they were going to be.”

Terrillion learned the benefits of communication skills as a theater major and journalism minor in college. She taught for 33 years in Louisiana public schools, 29 of them at Mandeville High, where she affected a generation of current leaders, including Danielson.

“We always had great students at Mandeville because their parents wanted them to succeed,” she said. “Learning was important to the whole family.”

That’s one reason Terrillion asked Danielson to speak to her classes at Mandeville High back in 2002, only five months after the 9/11 attacks. She wanted him to help the Mandeville High family understand the real gravity of the day.

The memories of 9/11 were still fresh for everyone, and class after class sat riveted in the school library to hear Danielson talk about evacuating the Pentagon, helping mobilize for overseas duty and eventually serving his country in Operation Enduring Freedom.

“He was one of ours and he saw all this unfold firsthand,” Terrillion said. “You could have heard a pin drop in there.”

Danielson also ranks that day, speaking to students at his alma mater, as one of his most pivotal.

“I spoke to all of Mrs. Sue’s classes, and I think a whole bunch of other people who came by the library to listen,” Danielson said. “By the time I walked out of there at 2:30 in the afternoon, I was wiped out. So whenever I’ve had the opportunity to speak with students, it just reaffirms my respect for educators.

“I did it for one day and was exhausted. They do it for 180 days a year and don’t miss a beat. And thank goodness for that.”