Doug Peruski remembers his years at the University of Georgia, Athens
as an invaluable experience, and the one that made all the difference
in his life. But he says it couldn’t have gone as well as it did if he
hadn’t had the initial experience in the drama departments at Peachtree
Ridge High School, and at Kennesaw State University.
“I read somewhere once that if a student is lucky, he or she will have that one teacher that really makes a difference. I think I was still in middle school then, and it didn’t make any sense to me. But boy, did I ever find out how true that is!”
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For Doug Peruski, the teacher who made a difference was Miss Terrapin, his drama teacher at Peachtree Ridge. “When I first had one of her classes, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life,” he says. “And she sensed that, somehow. And I guess she liked me. I don’t know why, because I was just another dumb freshman. But she reached out to me. And we developed this friendship. She drew me out. She made me think about things that I hadn’t ever thought about before.”
Doug Peruski credits Miss Terrapin with first encouraging him to try his hand at acting. She assigned him a scene from Flowers for Algernon, and as he remembers it today, “I just came alive. I had never experienced anything like that – the feeling of being someone else for a little while, of bringing a character to life, by channeling my own emotions through someone else’s words. It was just – I’m trying to describe it, but it was just indescribable.”
Doug Peruski took every class he could from Miss Terrapin – “She’s Mrs. Endoval now,” he says – and she directed him in four student plays over the years. When he finished high school, she suggested he enroll at Kennesaw State University.
“I read somewhere once that if a student is lucky, he or she will have that one teacher that really makes a difference. I think I was still in middle school then, and it didn’t make any sense to me. But boy, did I ever find out how true that is!”
For Doug Peruski, the teacher who made a difference was Miss Terrapin, his drama teacher at Peachtree Ridge. “When I first had one of her classes, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life,” he says. “And she sensed that, somehow. And I guess she liked me. I don’t know why, because I was just another dumb freshman. But she reached out to me. And we developed this friendship. She drew me out. She made me think about things that I hadn’t ever thought about before.”
Doug Peruski credits Miss Terrapin with first encouraging him to try his hand at acting. She assigned him a scene from Flowers for Algernon, and as he remembers it today, “I just came alive. I had never experienced anything like that – the feeling of being someone else for a little while, of bringing a character to life, by channeling my own emotions through someone else’s words. It was just – I’m trying to describe it, but it was just indescribable.”
Doug Peruski took every class he could from Miss Terrapin – “She’s Mrs. Endoval now,” he says – and she directed him in four student plays over the years. When he finished high school, she suggested he enroll at Kennesaw State University.
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