Michael Kuentz
During National Reading Month, first grade students at Bedford Elementary in Dearborn Heights savored the love of reading through a week of celebrity guest readers.
First grade teacher Doug Lessnau, affectionately known as “Mister L” to his students, was able to line up a core of local celebrities who came to his classroom to entertain and read during the week of March 11-15.
Alan Longstreet, WJBK-TV (Fox 2) meteorologist, read “Everyone Poops” to the silly amusement of the class.
O. W. Best Middle School principal, Ariel Brown, also visited the class, reading stories from the “Frog and Toad” series.
“I love all the people that work in my community. But I just like with Alan Longstreet, that was crazy as well. He did like “Everybody Poops”, and that was his book, was a great book,” Lessnau said.
Film and TV director Fred Walton, a friend of Lessnau, came to the class virtually via Zoom.
Walton, who directed “When a Stranger Calls”, “The Rosary Murders”, some episodes of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “Miami Vice”, and multiple made-for-TV movies, enlightened the children with a story entitled “Sredni Vashtar”. The book, written by Hector Hugh Munro under the pseudonym “Saki”, is about a boy and his cousin who learn about their capabilities to be bad things and the consequences.
Lessnau first met Walton as a kid when his father worked on “The Rosary Murders”, which was filmed in Detroit, as they both learned they share the same birthday, May 14.
But perhaps the biggest surprise guest was when the human star of Animal Planet’s TV Show “Saved by The Barn,” Dan McKernan, came to the classroom on Friday, March 15.
Outside of the classroom door hung a bright blue hand-painted banner welcoming their guest reader. The poster depicted an image of McKernan touching nose to nose with a large pig beside the words “Welcome Dan!”.
McKernan left a tech job in Texas to run his family’s 140-year-old farm and has since become an ardent advocate for animal rights. His focus is primarily on animals which have been abused or neglected.
“(Because of) my dad, I’ve always had that farm in the family, and I would go visit my grandparents every summer and winter vacation. And I remember spending a lot of time in that big barn jumping on a lot of hay bales. And after working in technology, being stuck in an office for so long, I wanted to get out,” McKernan said.
“I’ve always loved animals. And as a kid, I always wanted to be a veterinarian and fix animals. So that’s kind of how I started it. My dad said, if you can pay for the feed, you can start an animal rescue. And then he was just like, are you sure you want to leave your full-time job?” McKernan said.
It was this opportunity to move back to the farm and convert it to an animal sanctuary that made McKernan quit his tech job and move back to Dexter.
McKernan came to read the book he wrote about the animals on the farm, entitled “This Farm is a Family.”
McKernan said he was inspired to write the write the book when he “realized how many kids love farm animals. I didn’t really think starting the sanctuary, I’d be able to connect with just so many kids that want to be around farm animals or who has never met a farm animal.”
Lessnau’s students watched all the episodes of the TV show and many of McKernan’s other farm videos on YouTube and knew all the animals by name and characteristics.
Through the show, McKernan teaches viewers a lot about the various farm animals he has adopted and their backstories as to how they came to the farm.
Once he was seated in front of the class, the kids told McKernan their favorite animals from the TV series included the cows named Mike, Dexter, and Whitney, the pigs named Little Dude, Jasper, Big Papa, and Jasmine, a goat named Steve and Winter the dog.
Lessnau’s students wanted to know when certain animals came to the farm and from where. When McKernan gave certain dates, many kids remarked those were years they were born or from before they were born.
Lessnau’s students peppered McKernan with all sorts of questions about farm life and the animals, especially the assortment of pigs on the farm. McKernan said that the farm is home to 27 big pigs and 24 potbelly pigs.
“Pigs like to cool down in the mud because they can’t sweat. To cool themselves down under in the sun they like to hop into a mud puddle,” McKernan said over a chorus of giggles.
Jaws dropped in awe when McKernan said a pig named Jasper weighed more than 900 pounds, that Big Papa the pig weighs over 1,000 pounds and “I would say our heaviest animal would be a cow. And his name’s Henry. He’s probably close to 25 hundred pounds and he is over 6 feet tall.”
McKernan told the children the videos he had been uploading to YouTube caught the attention of producers at Animal Planet who asked if they could make it into a TV show.
“The animals are most popular. They’re the celebrities of the sanctuary. You know, if they could post pictures of themselves online, I’m sure they would, because everyone asks us, Where’s Little Dude, Where’s Mike the cow?” McKernan said that he often gets asked about what’s it like being a TV star with the animals.
McKernan’s book is illustrated by a friend named Denise Hughes. Lessnau’s students immediately recognized the farm animals from their likenesses.
Lessnau’s partner, Shawn Cagle, donated autographed copies of McKernan’s book “This Farm is a Family” to every student in the class. Cagle’s company, The Yellow Rose Builders, purchased the books.
Through the generosity of Cagle’s company, students at Bedford Elementary have benefited with having field trips paid for, countless treats being delivered to Lessnau’s classroom, clothing for kids during the winter months, and contributions for the annual toy drive.
Several Dearborn Heights school board members, police officers and fire fighters, Mayor Bill Bazzi, local celebrity and radio personality John Zadikian, Wayne County Commissioner Dave Knezek, and WDIV-TV (Channel 4) sportscaster Jamie Edmonds also visited Bedford Elementary during March for National Reading Month.
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