Crash Victim Mary Sekul Was Art Teacher Who Touched 1,000 Lives
By Ryan Lillis, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.
Mar. 12–Two mornings a week, the hallways of Mariemont Elementary School were filled with the sound of Mary Sekul pulling her art cart.
Carrying the tools of a traveling art teacher — brushes, paint, crayons — the veteran educator was a welcome sight to the Arden Park school’s staff and the 400 students who studied under her.
On Tuesday, Sekul was supposed to be entering the school around 8 a.m. Instead, there was a phone call and the news that Sekul was gone.
The 59-year-old art teacher was killed Monday night when a suspected drunken driver struck her car on Folsom Boulevard in East Sacramento, police said.
The driver, 22-year-old Robert Basinger, was arrested on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and felony driving under the influence resulting in injury, according to Sacramento police. He declined to comment Tuesday from his cell at the Sacramento County jail.
While police were investigating the crash, Sekul was being remembered by her family and friends as a gifted artist who connected deeply with the nearly 1,000 students she taught on a weekly basis at three area elementary schools.
“She was a wonderful person,” said her daughter, Claire Sekul. “She was kind to everybody and good-hearted. We are devastated. She helped other people before she would help herself.”
According to police, Sekul was turning onto 47th Street off Folsom Boulevard about 10:20 p.m. when her Mazda 626 was struck by a white Jeep Cherokee. Sekul died at the scene and Basinger was taken to UC Davis Medical Center with minor injuries, police said.
Officials at the three schools in the San Juan Unified School District where Sekul taught broke the news to their students Tuesday. Counselors were on hand and plans were being made for students to express their feelings in works of art.
“The kids love art,” said Mariemont principal Linda Dismukes. “And she always had something fun and engaging for them to do.”
Whether it was asking her students to paint portraits of great American presidents or interpret the work of Winslow Homer in their own way, Sekul had a special knack of “connecting art to students’ lives by making it relevant,” said Phyllis Westrup, the principal at Del Paso Manor Elementary.
Sekul had taught at that school two days a week since the beginning of the school year.
She had been with the school district since 1985, teaching both art and special education.
Her recent assignments also included one day a week at Cameron Ranch Elementary and working as a home teacher for students with extended illnesses.
The school principals expect a “delayed reaction” from their students as the news begins to take hold over the next few days, Dismukes said.
“I think kids are very resilient,” said Dismukes. “For many, this will be their first touch with death.”
Administrators at Mariemont Elementary had plans to finish turning a computer lab into a full-time art room for Sekul next week.
“Even with those students who only saw her 40 minutes a week, she was able to make a connection,” Dismukes said. “They remember every little thing about her.”
The Sacramento Police Department is still investigating what led to the crash.
Anyone with information is asked to call the department’s Major Collision Unit at (916) 277-6030.
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