Beverly Thompson was one of my high school’s all-time best teachers. That’s not to say Ms. H’s “j-k-l-semicolon” typing drills haven’t stood the test of time, but I must still cast my vote for Mrs. T. She alone was willing to tackle an elective like journalism with kids who didn’t know a headline from a deadline.

Somehow Mrs. T managed to help our class get the basics down and the Warrior Wonder out. I can still picture her at the board (a chalk one), detailing inverted pyramid style. “Important stuff, then fluff,” she’d say, looking at us over the edge of her glasses while fumes wafted in from under the dark room door.

Lately I’ve been thinking about Mrs. T. a lot, especially on Tuesday afternoons when I keep company with a class of newly-minted writers. A recent week found us hunkered down over several newspapers, searching for leads containing the five w’s (who, what, when, where, why) and endings that could have been chopped if necessary – thus the inverted style.

My students found plenty of those mechanics, along with a heaping dose of murders, scandals and strife. Sad stuff. I found myself apologizing for putting them through such a depressing exercise. Why is there always so much bad news?

Martin Luther, a guy who never watched CNN or read USA Today, pegged the answer some 500 years ago when he wrote, “Cain will murder Abel, if he can, to the very end of the world.” Smart man, that Luther. Too bad we know so little about him and why Saturday will be noteworthy for reasons beside (or in spite of) jack-o-lanterns and haunted houses. Most of us, I suspect, are like the young mom who recently approached me after a history class and remarked, “This Martin Luther guy – is that who Martin Luther King Jr. is named for? I’ve never heard of him.”

Yes, but she shouldn’t feel bad. Not many do, unless they’ve listed Oct. 31, 1517, on a world civ test at some point in their education.

So how might a reporter of that era have penned the Luther scoop? Surely he would have begun with the five w’s:

In Germany today, Martin Luther hammered 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door, lighting a match that appears to have sparked a reformation of sorts.

He could sprinkle in a quote or two for good measure:

Sources close to the young monk indicated Luther had become disillusioned with the excesses and non-biblical practices of church leaders. “He decided to put his complaints into writing and post them publicly,” one eye-witness confirmed. “I don’t think the Pope will like it very much.”

A follow-up report years later would take note of the outcome:

The fact that we now have Protestant churches — and even the United States — is due in part to what Luther risked so much to accomplish.

And if there was space on an opinion page today, a writer might point out:

Few things in history are more relevant to current Christianity than Luther’s example of evaluating beliefs and practices in the light of what the Bible says. Just take our hyper-Halloween culture, for instance . . .

But I imagine Mrs. T., if editing, would cut that last line. “A debate best left for another column,” she’d say, eyeing me over the top of her glasses, and probably be right. Oh, well. Happy Reformation Day anyway.

Wesson resident Kim Henderson is a freelance writer who writes for The Daily Leader. Contact her at kimhenderson319@gmail.com.