Ten years and 50 quarters later, program makes a map of memories

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - Natalie Spence gets emotional as she reads the names next to the coins on the battered state quarters map in her Forts Pond Elementary School classroom.

"I hadn't thought about some of these kids in a while," said Spence, a second-grade teacher at the Pelion, S.C., school.

That's the real value of the state quarter maps so many people bought in the first few years of the 10-year project. Unfolding their leaves is like opening a scrapbook. There'll be lots of reminiscing this month as the last of the 50 quarters _ Hawaii _ finally reaches circulation.

For Spence, the questions _ and the learning _ were all on the second-grade level.

"Second-graders don't know much about states," Spence said. "When you bring this (quarters map) in and start talking about how it all comes together as a United States, they start to understand."

Spence started collecting quarters for her classroom map in 2000 at the recommendation of her husband, who already had a map at home for their children. She asked children to search for state quarters, and the first ones to bring in certain states got to sign their name on the map beside the quarter.

Some required Spence to give them a replacement quarter in return. "A quarter is a lot of money to a second-grader," she said.

Matt Wise, now a freshman at Pelion High School, proudly points to his name next to the South Carolina quarter. (He went by Eddie, short for his middle name Edward, back then.)

"I remember everyone liked the South Carolina quarter and the one from Tennessee because it had a guitar on it," Wise said.

Spence usually brought out the map in second semester when the states are part of the second-grade curriculum. At least one group didn't get a chance to add quarters. The map was lost in the summer move from one classroom to another, then found the next year.

The cardboard map is a little warped and worn, suitable for something carrying so many memories.

Spence brought in the Florida quarter herself, celebrating a family trip to Universal Studios. A name and a drawing of an angel is next to the Louisiana quarter, in honor of a child's mother, who died during that school year.

Like with some families, interest in finding quarters for the map waned in Spence's classroom in the later years. It's still missing 10 coins, some of them dating back to 2003.

But Spence is confident the end of the state quarter series will prompt a resurgence in classroom interest, allowing her to fill out the map. She plans to ask a former student who moved to Pelion from Hawaii to donate the last quarter.

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When she pulled out the map last week, principal John Young stopped by her room and taunted her with an Alaska quarter that could have filled one empty slot.

"He wouldn't give it to me," Spence said. "He said he needed it for his own collection."

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© 2008, The State (Columbia, S.C.).