Planting love, memories

A tree grows at Bowers.

Nearly a dozen students planted it there on Friday and they expect it to grow up big, strong and proud. On a warm, sunny Friday afternoon, they helped to pour water into a freshly-dug holed, used their hands to push small mounds of dirt into the crevasses and packed shovelfuls of loose dirt in place.

They did all of that so they could remember their friend Mr. Bob Cassie.

All of the students who planted the tree are part of the Project MORE initiative, a program that depends on community volunteers who help to tutor children struggling with reading and comprehension.

Mr. Cassie was one of those special volunteers.

“He was always nice and helped people a whole lot,” Bowers student Bre Baxter said.

Julie Brokaw, the Bowers Elementary principal, talked to the students about Mr. Cassie and how special he was.

“If he was your reading teacher,” Brokaw said, “you are so lucky.”

Cassie, 73, passed away in mid-October following a heart attack.

“He’s probably in heaven, now,” one student told Project MORE coordinator Debbie Wolfe.

He used his entire life to explore the world around him through studies, art and volunteering. A professor of geology, Cassie taught at SUNY Brockport for 33 years and, during the summer, taught field geology at Indiana University Geologic Field Station in Montana for a number of years.

“When he moved to Massillon, he wanted to come to Bowers and teach,” Brokaw told the children on Friday. “He came almost every day because he liked it so much.”

Photography was also a passion of Cassie’s. He shared his works, volunteered and spent time at the Massillon Museum. Although his time in Massillon was short, Brokaw is certain that Cassie loved it here. Especially at Bowers.

“He might be upstairs looking down on all of you,” Brokaw told the children Friday, “because he really liked to teach.”

Now, because they took the time to plant the tree, Wolfe told the children that they will never forget Mr. Cassie.

"Every time you look at this tree," Wolfe said, "you can think of Mr. Cassie."