Student Creates Ben Franklin Painting For Teacher

SEBRING - Sebring High School sophomore Megan Foster had a surprise Monday for her favorite teacher from eighth grade - Sebring Middle School's Tom Libby.

"Oh! Woo! that does look like him," Libby said, after his first glimpse of a painting of Ben Franklin that Foster made for him.

"I'm going to get emotional; I feel honored," he added.

Over the years, Libby has let his history students know about his fascination with the bespectacled founding father.

Libby mentions a few of Franklin's accomplishments: the Franklin stove, the lightning rod, the bifocal lenses, the Poor Richard's Almanac, the first lending library in the continental United States and - being the principal of the nation's first International Baccalaureate school in Philadelphia.

No, Franklin was not an I.B. principal. Libby tossed that in as a joke.

"He was the consummate giver to his country," Libby said. "My ultimate hero of the founding fathers is Ben Franklin. I think he should have been president."

Foster created the 24-by-30-inch acrylic painting for Libby as part of a National Honor Society project.
She based her painting on an image from the Internet of an oil painting by Michael J. Deas, which was featured on a Time magazine cover.

To Foster, the project seemed to last "forever," to which Libby chimed in "but, it was worth it."
When Franklin was an ambassador, he was the toast of Europe, Libby said.

"A party wasn't a party unless Ben Franklin was invited to it," he added.

This Franklin portrait will be invited to the Libby home.

"He'll be in my classroom, but he comes home with me at night," Libby said with a laugh.