LEWISTOWN — Some stories of student success begin with big breakthroughs. Carter Yohn’s began with a sticky note.

Back in eighth grade, the now 18-year-old Carter was a frustrated math student who often felt overwhelmed and defeated. He has ADHD, and school rarely felt like a place where he could win. But in the Mifflin County School District Alpha Program office, at a small coffee table between two “comfy chairs,” he found something he hadn’t felt in a long time — someone who believed he could do hard things.

That someone was educator Suzi Bender.

The two spent hours together working through fractions and equations, celebrating every small step forward. The online program they used, Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces, flashed encouraging messages after rounds of correct answers. Bender joked about how many different phrases the program must have, and Carter began writing each new one on a sticky note and pinning it to the bulletin board behind her desk.

The hope was simple. If he saw enough reminders of success, maybe he’d start to believe them.

One day, a message popped up that made Carter tilt his head. “Super… Bee?” he read. Bender leaned over. It actually said, “Superb, Carter!” They both burst out laughing. It was a tiny moment, but it broke through the frustration that had followed him for years.

From that moment on, he was “Super B.”

The nickname followed him everywhere — in the hallway, at lunch, at soccer, football and basketball games. A nod, a grin, a “Hey, Super B,” and always a smile back. For a kid who often felt out of place in school, the nickname became a small but steady reminder that someone saw him, believed in him and enjoyed him.

Bender eventually wrote the nickname on a sticky note for him, never imagining it would become anything more than a shared joke. But Carter tucked that note into the back of his phone case and carried it with him for years. It stayed there through high school, through the hard days, through the days he didn’t want to come to school at all.

It stayed there until he turned it into something permanent.

“Do not be scared to ask questions because that one question could become a connection like Miss Bender and I acquired,” Carter said.

He graduates this week

Carter’s mom, Amy, remembers the struggle clearly. “My son is ‘non typical’ per se,” she said. “He does not like school, wanted to quit, was having a hard time all around.” Now he is set to graduate this week. “He actually wanted to get up each morning.”

Amy drives a school van, transporting preschool students with special needs. She sees every day how much connection matters, how much difference one adult can make. “It just goes to show that your non typical person, student, can graduate with the help, support and connections that Carter has made. It surely means a lot.”

She watched her son change slowly — not overnight, not dramatically, but steadily. He started showing up. He started trying. He started believing he could finish something he once thought was impossible.

So when Carter told her he wanted to get a tattoo of that sticky note — the exact handwriting, the exact moment — she didn’t hesitate. “How could I say no to that?” she laughed. “It’s encouraging words, moments and people like Suzi who helped my son find his way to graduation.”

A surprise years in the making

Just weeks before graduation, Amy walked into Bender’s office with a serious expression and asked her to call Carter over. Bender assumed something was wrong. She even wondered if she had made a mistake somewhere along the way.

Instead, Carter leaned against the counter, rolled up his sleeve and revealed fresh ink on his forearm: “Super B.” In Bender’s handwriting.

In that instant, everything connected — the bulletin board, the sticky notes, the long afternoons at the coffee table, the laughter over “Super Bee,” the hallway greetings, the slow and steady growth of a kid learning to believe in himself.

Bender teared up. “I don’t think there’s a more literal and figurative indelible mark you can make on a kid than this,” she said later. “A tattoo. On his arm. In your handwriting.”

For her, it was a reminder that the smallest gestures — a joke, a sticky note, a nickname — can become the lifeline a student holds onto.

“I got the tattoo because I know it will be a permanent reminder that whenever I feel like something is very struggling to me I know that I can always have a reminder that I can do it,” Carter explained.

Walking across the stage

The Alpha Program, which provides flexible, individualized instruction for students who need a different path to graduation, became the place where Carter slowly rebuilt his confidence.

Carter Yohn, the student who once wanted to quit school, is now days away from graduating.

“I am excited to graduate and at the same time I am not excited to graduate,” he shared.

He knows the moment will feel big — not just because he earned the diploma, but because of everything it took to get there.

Carter’s taller, more confident, more sure of himself. And on his arm is a reminder of the moment he started to believe he could succeed.

A reminder of the instructor who sat with him through the frustration. A reminder of the parents who never stopped pushing him forward. A reminder that sometimes the smallest encouragement becomes the turning point.

“Absolutely I will miss her,” Carter said of not seeing Bender after he graduates. “Not just as a teacher but someone who I grew close to and got to know outside of the Alpha classroom.”

Super B, indeed.