Flash player is required to view weather conditions. Download

Editor's Note:This is Dale Huffman's first column in the Dayton Daily News since Jan. 30.

Unfortunately, it'll be his last for a few weeks.

Extras

Photos

Dale Huffman. Click to enlarge

Dale underwent some additional surgery on Thursday. But he plans to get back to his column as soon as he is able.

Dale, who ended his seven-day-a-week column after eight years when he fell ill, didn't want a 24-year Mother's Day tradition to end as well. So, while recuperating from his first cancer surgery this winter and spring, Dale started looking for dedicated and caring mothers in the Miami Valley.

He regrets that he could choose only one.

It has been a real pleasure, as always, to sort through and read all the wonderful letters and emails as part of our annual search for an outstanding mom to honor on Mother's Day.

This year, as I was recuperating from cancer surgery, I spent many pleasant hours reading about dedicated and caring mothers in the Miami Valley. I just wish there was some way we could honor each mother who was nominated.

If all goes as planned, when you read about the mom selected, I will be resting in a local hospital where I have returned for additional surgery. My surgeon Dr. Jack H. Pence gives me a positive prognosis, and I intend to be back on the beat turning out columns and telling interesting stories about our friends and neighbors in the Miami Valley within a few weeks.

Right now I am pleased to share a few letters submitted this year by school children. As you will see, the notes are candid, and precious, and some include drawings.

Here is a sampling of opinions from 7th-graders in Eugene Jackson's class at Patterson Kennedy Academy, 258 Wyoming St., Dayton.

Tevin Talbott, 13, titled his letter "I need her."

Tevin wrote, "My mom gets me everything I need. She gets me name brand shoes, name brand shirts. She saved up and bought me a Play Station 3. Sometimes she gets on my nerves, and I probably get on her nerves too.

He adds, "My mother is the most important person in my life. She is the best mom ever, raising two kids by herself. She is strict, but I need it. I love her."

Yvette Derden, 12, said her mother is "very very special" and is "the perfect mother figure and my bestest friend."

Yvette adds, "She is a beautician with a corner store and she is really all I have except for my brothers and sisters. She is perfect in every way."

Donzel Lewis, 14, wrote that mothers care about a child's future.

"Moms care about you and help you," Donzel said. "They want you to go to college and get a high paying job and won't be a poor person and you can have a good life instead of a bad one. That is why moms care about you."

Ashley LaMantia is a second-grader student in Karen Kuemping's class at Beverly Gardens Elementary School, 5555 Enright Ave., Riverside.

Ashley sent along a colorful drawing of her mom. In her own spelling style, Ashley wrote, "My mom is spectacular because she loves me very much. She makes very, very good spagetti and meat balls, bread, nodeles, and devalded eggs."

She added, "She taught me how to behave. She is the BEST mother in the whole, whole, whole wide world."

Ginny Belt, another second-grader at Beverly Gardens said her mom is "spectacular."

"My mom is in the Air Force and is a surgical nurse and works hard every day," Ginny wrote. "I was adopted. My mom loves me and takes care of me. She makes any kind of cookies and pizza. She lets me have four birthday parties. Two in Ohio and one at each grandparent's house. She is always by my side."

Contact this columnist by e-mail dhuffman@DaytonDailyNews.com or by mail at Dayton Daily News, 1611 S. Main St., Dayton, Ohio, 45409.

Vote for this story!