That word came up a lot in interviews following her death Jan. 7 at Tampa General Hospital with her family at her side.
Lastinger, 80, graduated from Brandon High and was an elementary school teacher in Brandon for 34 years. She was a past president of the Greater Brandon Old-Timers Association, which meets once a year for a luncheon attended by residents with longtime roots in the area.
“She was a beautiful lady from the inside out,” said Karen Rodriguez, president of the Brandon High School Alumni Association and past president of the old-timers’ association. “What I will remember most are the original arrangements, the centerpieces, she made for the old-timers’ association. They were different year after year after year and they were beautiful.”
So, too, was Lastinger, she said.
“I ran into her recently with her husband, Oscar, at Wal-Mart,” Rodriguez said. “Whenever you saw her she was meticulously dressed. She was always such a classy lady.”
Earl Lennard, the former superintendent of schools for Hillsborough County, issued a similar sentiment.
Lastinger was his second- or third-grade teacher at Palm River Elementary School. She taught there after teaching at Brandon School, where she met her husband of 55 years while a third-grade teacher. After Palm River, she helped open Walter S. Yates Elementary School, Brandon’s first standalone elementary school.
“She was such a beautiful lady,” Lennard said. “Everybody wanted to have her as a teacher because she was such an extraordinarily patient and kind person. All the young boys thought she was the quintessential woman, and she was. She was somebody all the young girls could look up to and emulate as a role model.”
Lennard entered the school system as a first-grader and graduated from Brandon High School. He said he first met Oscar Lastinger when he was a student at Brandon High. Oscar Lastinger was an agricultural education teacher.
“Later on, he was an ag teacher at Turkey Creek and Plant City High and I was an ag teacher at East Bay High School,” Lennard said. “We kept close to the Lastingers all these years because, with all the ag teachers, it’s like a family. We had ag functions during the year where the families would be invited. The Lastinger family would always be there.”
Still, it’s his memories as a young student in Mrs. Lastinger’s classroom that Lennard holds most dear.
“She was not only a good teacher, she was a great teacher,” Lennard said. “You could tell that she just cared about the youngsters in her classroom and I think everyone felt that.”
Lennard said her legacy will live on for generations.
“I really believe that the essence of having a link to our past is through people like Mrs. Lastinger,” he said. “I had her for a short time as a teacher, but she taught my younger brother, Charlie, as well.”
“It’s a terrific loss,” said Rodriguez. “Brandon has lost another great old-timer, another great longtime friend.”
Lastinger began her teaching career in 1948 under her high school principal, E.F. McLane, for whom McLane Middle School is named. She was born Nov. 2, 1926, in Seffner, to Fred Day and Reta Chastain Baucom. As a young girl, she played the piano at First Baptist Church of Seffner. In 1943, she became a member of First Baptist Church of Brandon, where she was a Sunday school teacher, choir member and church pianist.
She is survived by her husband, Oscar; her children, Becky Jordan, Martha Henderson and George Lastinger; her grandchildren, Audra Butler, Matthew and Victoria Lastinger, Dyan and Shawn Henderson; two nieces and five nephews.