Retired Teacher With Cancer Serenaded By Former Students In Germantown

GERMANTOWN, MD — More than 100 alumni from Rockville's now-closed Robert E. Peary High School serenaded their former English and drama teacher with Christmas carols outside his Germantown home on Saturday. Vincent Gibbs, now 82, is currently battling cancer.

Beginning in 1960, Gibbs taught thousands of students and directed more than 40 drama productions at Peary before Montgomery County shuttered the school in 1984.

Paula Sweeney, a member of the Peary Class of '72, conceived and organized Saturday's event after talking to Gibbs on the phone in October.

"He had said to me, 'Paula, I wonder if I've made a difference in all the students' lives that I ever had,'" she said. "I thought I have to do something, because this man is so revered and he doesn't even really realize it. So I got the idea and started going to colleagues I knew on their Facebook pages."

The message spread among the Peary alumni One of the people that got in contact with Sweeney was Debi Barbee, who in works in transportation at Montgomery County Public Schools. She was able to arrange a bus to drive all of the students to Gibbs' home on Saturday.

Once they arrived, some former students held up posters, others gave brief speeches, the sang Chrismas carols like "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," and Pastor Bill Thomas, a member of Perry's Class of 1970, offered a prayer.

As students who graduated from 1964 to 1984, Sweeney said that she and her fellow alumni were the last generation of students taught that you don't get an award for just showing up.

"You have to work for it," she said. "You have to excel at it. If you want to make it in life, if you want to go reach for the stars, you have to back it all up with the practice and the work. That's what he taught us."

For that reason, Sweeney felt that Gibbs deserved a trophy for all that he had done and presented it to him on Saturday.

"It was shooting stars, and it was inscribed, 'To Vincent Gibbs. You taught us to reach for the stars. With fondness and respect, the students of Robert E. Peary High School,' and he was choked up."

All of the students then joined members of the school chorus in singing "The Impossible Dream."

"That was one of the shows that we did and I was in," Sweeney said. "I played Antonia and had he played Don Quixote."