Obituary: Wichita middle school teacher put the fun in drama

Among the mountain of cards and letters addressed to Lindsay Crump Perez in the office at Stucky Middle School is an unsigned one drawn on bright yellow paper.

“Heartbroken that you’re gone,” the card says on the front. It is decorated with the iconic theater mask that depicts tragedy.

Open it, and you see the laughing mask for comedy, and another note: “Overjoyed that you lived.”

Mrs. Perez, who taught drama at Stucky for the past decade, died Thursday from complications after giving birth to her first child.

Family members said her baby boy, Zander Nicolas Perez, is healthy and growing stronger despite being born about a month early. Her husband, Edgar, could take their son home in coming days.

Students, colleagues and friends at Stucky and nearby Heights High School, meanwhile, are mourning the loss of a teacher who they said related to kids with humor, love and hefty doses of sarcasm.

“She’d joke around a lot,” said Joe Filippi, an eighth-grader who worked on the school’s production of “Hairspray” last spring.

“I was stage manager with five other people, and she said, ‘OK, here are your jobs,’ ” Filippi remembers. “ ‘You hold the box of Cheez-Its. You make sure the Cheez-Its get to my mouth. You hold the Pepsi. You make sure the Pepsi gets to my mouth. And you – I know you won’t listen anyway, so just do whatever you want.’

“She was really fun.”

Randy Crump, Mrs. Perez’s father, says his daughter loved drama and always wanted to be a teacher. During her middle school years she attended Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts in Kansas City, Mo., then moved to Wichita and graduated from North High School.

When she started her job at Stucky – near 45th Street North and Oliver – in 2005, she found her niche, Crump said.

“Middle-schoolers know drama,” he said. “So what she did was help them perfect the drama.”

Every spring she coordinated all-school musical productions – “Honk,” “Annie,” “The Music Man,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and more – and encouraged every student to play a part, either onstage or behind the scenes. Students performed, directed and advertised the production. They helped build the sets and learned valuable lessons along the way.

“She made it fun,” said Lane Schwerdtfeger, a senior at Heights High School. When he was an eighth-grader at Stucky, Mrs. Perez cast him as Benny Southstreet in “Guys and Dolls” even though he had never performed before.

“I’d mess up and she’d make fun of me, but in a funny way,” Schwerdtfeger said. “I ended up loving it, and it was all because of her. She’s what made it fun.”

Like many of Mrs. Perez’s former students, Schwerdtfeger returned to Stucky each year to help with the productions. In addition to teaching, she planned and organized the school dances.

“She was a hard one to say no to,” said Rick Hartsell, assistant principal at Stucky. “She’d get people out here on evenings and weekends.

“Lindsay was one of those people who never met a stranger. Everybody was a friend, and they all wanted to help her out.”

Mike Haire, whose two daughters have long since left Stucky for high school and beyond, still builds sets for the school every year. On Friday, the day after Mrs. Perez died, he was supposed to meet with her to talk about this spring’s musical, “Legally Blonde.”

“What always amazed me about Lindsay … was how she could get those kids together and pull off an amazing show,” Haire said. “She’d tell them, ‘What you put into it is what you get out of it,’ and you’d see the light bulb go off in their heads. It was amazing to watch.”

A viewing for Mrs. Perez will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at Baker Funeral Home, 6100 E. Central. A celebration of life will be at 1 p.m. Sunday at Stucky Middle School, 4545 Broadview Circle. Because orange was Mrs. Perez’s favorite color, friends and family are planning to wear orange to pay tribute.

The Zander Perez Donation Fund has been established at Wells Fargo Bank and contributions can be made at any branch. A Go Fund Me site also has been set up to help the Perez family offset medical and other expenses. To contribute, visit www.gofundme.com/nb62b7ys.

This story was originally published October 12, 2015 at 10:55 PM with the headline "Obituary: Wichita middle school teacher put the fun in drama."