Man sends former teachers checks decades later

Teaching is often thought of as a thankless job, but one former student has been thanking his high school teachers with big checks.

According to ABC News, Kevin Perz sent one his high school teachers a $10,000 "thank you" check, and she's just the latest to receive financial recognition from the Kansas resident.

Perz graduated from Parkway Central High School in Missouri back in 1977, but he hasn't forgotten the teachers who made an impact on his life. In January, Perz tracked down his home economics teacher, Marilyn Mecham, and called her to say thank you. She thought the recognition was kind enough, but two days later she received a letter from Perz with a check made out for $10,000.

"The enclosed Christmas gift is intended to be 100% used on you and your personal life," the note reads. "I would be sad if you didn't spend it all on yourself."

"If he had sent $100 that would have been overwhelming," she told The Daily News. "I turned the check over and saw the word thousand, and then ten thousand and I was just 'wow.' I immediately started crying. I was like 'who does this?'"

She got the letter on a Friday but had to wait until Monday to call and thank Perz.

"She said 'every time I started to pick up the phone I started to cry,'" Perz said to The News.

Mecham says whatever she taught Perz in her first year as a teacher was quite unremarkable, but what her former student is doing is remarkable.

Perz works in construction distribution and first started sending thank you checks to his teachers in 1992. He sent his calculus teacher a $5,000 check. Two decades later he sent a $10,000 check to his business teacher.

"Everybody in their life can always think back to someone in their life who had an impact, if it's a teacher or a boy scout leader or anyone," Perz told ABC News.

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