When Tim Cook was an 11th grader at Robertsdale High School in Mobile, he and some friends would draw pictures of teachers with their names on Sherrel Dawkins’ chalkboard during breaks.

Dawkins, 82, fondly recalls deciding not to send Cook, now CEO of Apple, to the principal’s office, after a practical joke.

She loved Cook’s sense of humor and intellect and considers him one of the “best exports from Robertsdale High School.”

“He was always pulling some kind of joke and making me laugh,” Dawkins said.

Cook graduated as salutatorian in 1978 and was named “most studious.” He told AL.com recently that Dawkins was his favorite teacher.

Cook, in a statement to AL.com, said she made English fun every day and was grateful to be her student.

“I’ll always remember how she used Beatles songs to help us find the melody in the prose and poetry we studied for class,” Cook said. “Like any great teacher, she helped make learning a source of joy and lifelong fulfillment.”

Dawkins’ teaching philosophy was that students should think for themselves and not become “little puppets,” repeating what she taught them.

“You have to give students a chance to be themselves,” Dawkins said. “They’re not adults yet, but they’re not little kids. They have ideas and they’re growing and expanding. You have to give them a chance to exercise that.”

Dawkins, whose nickname was Granny, recalled a student would stand up in her class every December, count to three, and the class would sing “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”

Dawkins’ desire to become an educator began in the sixth grade, growing up in Bay Minette. She attended what Livingston State College (now the University of West Alabama) and received two master’s degrees from the University of South Alabama.

Over her nearly 40-year career, she taught English and American history for 25 years at Robertsdale, was assistant principal at Daphne High and finally retired as the language arts supervisor at the Baldwin County Board of Education.

Her fondest memories were when her students and fellow teachers would give her and other classmates a dose of kindness. When Dawkins was sick, students would be extra helpful and pick up a piece of chalk if she dropped it. When her husband was drafted and went to Vietnam, they made her baked goods.

If a student lost a parent or sibling, Dawkins would ask her class to pitch in to help pay for flowers or food. The students who could afford to donate never refused. She remembered a student who wasn’t in her class lost a parent in a car wreck in Oregon. The family couldn’t afford to bring the body back home for burial, so her students took up donations to help.

“They were just great people,” Dawkins said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate God giving me them, because they were good.”

Her daughter, Gayle Henshaw, 55, is also an educator. She remembered students from her mom’s class would always win an annual writing competition because she taught writing so well.

Henshaw remembers hearing about Cook’s antics from her mother.

“I always knew that my mom had a great rapport with her students and that laughter and not taking yourself seriously was a key factor for her,” she said. “Education was to be used as a tool and not something that defined you.”

Her parents taught her that “everybody needed the same opportunities and have the same access to education, no matter what their socioeconomic level was or what their backgrounds or the color of their skin were.” Henshaw believes teaching children can only be accomplished through strong relationships with them and their parents.

Henshaw’s 24-year career included teaching at J.Z. George High School in Carrollton, MS, and working as a social studies and foreign language supervisor at the Gulfport School District. She’s now a teacher at Bayside Academy in Daphne.

Dawkins hopes students like Cook learned to have confidence in themselves to achieve what they want to do.

“I think too many students didn’t have anybody to boost their thinking about what they could do and achieve,” she said. “I think that was one of the best things I tried to teach them.”