KDKA's Dave Crawley visits Hance Elementary School

Dave Crawley is well known for his rhyming ways and big smile, and he brought both with him Monday during his visit to Hance Elementary School.

Crawley, KDKA-TV’s KD Country reporter and author, came to visit with students for the annual Hance Author’s Workshop sponsored by the PTO.

Crawley is the author of “Cat Poems,” “Dog Poems,” and a book of school poems, “Reading, Rhyming and ‘Rithmetic.” 

Co-chairs for the event Betsy Lanyard and Jennifer Kraus said the PTO chooses a local author to speak with the students each year. Kraus and Lanyard are parent volunteers at the school. Kraus has a daughter, Sarah, in first grade and Lanyard's son, Alex, is in kindergarten.

 “We liked the fact that he seemed so friendly, and (because) he was on TV, we thought he may be a bit more outgoing,” said Lanyard. They contacted him through his website to arrange the visit.

“We had never had a poet before, so that really appealed to us,” said Kraus.  “He has been great to work with. We knew he would be a hit with the students.”

And a hit he was.

As Crawley visited with each grade, kindergarten through third, Lanyard said he had “age-appropriate” presentations for the students.

“He read some of his longer poems for the older students,” she said prior to his afternoon visit with the kindergarten students.

The teachers prepared the students by reading the books in advance and doing special projects, including writing poems, making paper dogs and cats and creating the cat and dog poem walls, according to Lanyard.

The visit tops off reading month at Hance, which included a book fair and turn-off-your-TV night.

“We want to encourage our children to read,” she said.

Crawley immediately had the approximately 30 kindergarten students interacting with him as he asked them about their own pets. 

“Who has a dog? Who has a cat? Did you ever write about them?” he asked.

Crawley brought some of the students to the front of the room to act out one of his poems and told them about his own writing start.

“The very first poem that I wrote was when I was five years older than you. I was in fifth grade,” he said. “And it was about a lemon and a lime because it is easy to rhyme with lime.”

The real crowd pleaser was when Crawley read a poem to the students about a dog who ate homework.

“It is the oldest excuse in the world,” said Crawley as he read about the dog who “sautéed spelling words” and made “notebook stew.” The students laughed when he asked, “Do you think your teacher would believe this?”

“Noooo,” was the enthusiastic reply.

Crawley asked the kindergarteners if they had any questions and listened as one young man told him his own story idea. In true Crawley fashion, he created a poem from the idea.

“That’s funny,” one of the students giggled.

In conjunction with his visit, Hance families were able to purchase Crawley’s books at a discount and he signed each book – all 150 of those purchased.

“He was so kind. He didn’t just sign his name, he wrote each of the children’s names in it and a little saying,” said Kraus. “He has been just great.”