Childhood pen pals reunited as teachers at DHS

Brandi Adams and Jaime Jo Lee, once childhood pen pals, are now DHS coworkers.

As an educator, you just never know what the day will bring.

Jaime Jo Lee, a graphic and web design teacher at Destrehan High School, got a huge surprise a couple of years ago when she passed a new teacher while walking the halls at school.

“I passed her, and I was just like, ‘Man, this woman looks very familiar,’” Lee said.

The other woman was Brandi Adams.

“I don’t think she recognized me at first,” Lee said. “But I said, ‘My name is Jaime Jo.’”

And just like that, the friends were reconnected.

Lee and Adams first met as pre-teens when they each played biddy basketball for their respective parishes – Lee for Lafourche and Adams for St. Charles.  The two hit it off – so much so that they became pen pals.

“We had similar things that were happening in regards with biddy basketball, and similar backgrounds because both dads were coaches,” Adams said. “We stayed in touch for a few years –  at least two or three years. We were pen pals and used to see each other all the time at basketball tournaments.”

The two women fell out of touch as they got older, but that all changed in January of 2020 when Adams got hired at DHS.

“She came up to me and was like, ‘Brandi Adams?’ and I was like, “Oh my God,’” Adams, a DHS algebra teacher and Albert Cammon Middle basketball coach, remembers.

The two women said they are ecstatic to be reunited.

“We just connected when we were younger,” Lee said. “I admired her playing skills and I thought she was an excellent basketball player. I thought she would be a good person to make friends with.”

Lee said although it seems archaic now, the concept of being pen pals made sense at the time.

“Well, that’s when they had long distance calls and we were in different area codes and those cost money,” she said laughing. “We just kind of fell out of touch, but being reunited was wild. It’s funny to see that we landed in the same profession. I used to have Lisa Frank stationary just for her. I would get my mom to mail my letters from Luling and I would get cute stationary just for this … just to write to Brandi.”

 

About Monique Roth 919 Articles
Roth has both her undergraduate and graduate degree in journalism, which she has utilized in the past as an instructor at Southeastern Louisiana University and a reporter at various newspapers and online publications. She grew up in LaPlace, where she currently resides with her husband and three daughters.

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