Linda Porto:

Letter to the Editor Katy Times September 2, 1998

Linda Porto Leaves Legacy

Linda Porto, a dear friend, passed away last week. Linda was someone I met and became friends with when I served on the Katy school board. When I first came to know her, I was struck by her tenacious concern for the quality of instruction her children were receiving at their school.

Although Linda and I neither one understood at first what it was that we disliked about the changing curriculum and structure in our schools, we spent much time together trying to figure it out. Linda, more than anyone, helped me to understand the severity of the intent of those who were changing our educational system. Her countless hours on the Internet, the phone, and attending school board meetings and other functions were testimony to her interest and devotion in making sure that the schools her children attended were what they were supposed to be. Many times when it was "me" against the majority of the board on matters that to me were very important, Linda would come and sit in the audience to provide moral support. Sometimes she would be the only person in the audience. I will be forever grateful for that support.

I smile when I think of her willingness to engage the school system’s proponents to make sure that they were doing what was proper. She unabashedly would take on the superintendents, building supervisors, principals, school board candidates and anyone else who assumed responsibility and who in her mind did not fulfill their charge. More than once I received my own comeuppance.

Unfortunately, all of this effort has a tendency to eat away at one and affect one’s health. Linda suffered a stroke about a month ago and never regained consciousness.

She leaves a loving husband and three delightful young daughters. Ironically she had finally enrolled all of her girls in a private school this fall, giving up on the public school system that she worked so diligently to correct. Her family should be very proud of her efforts. I know that I am.

Her legacy reveals itself in the slow, but very apparent return of a renewed interest in and insistence upon a classical academic education for our children.

Linda will be missed.

Mary McGarr