PENDLETON — In the wake of a bleak week, the administrators of Sunridge Middle School donned costumes.

Sunridge Principal Dave Williams became an elf, Jingles McKringle-Berry, and Assistant Principal Jared Tesch turned into Santa Claus as they headed out into the community to deliver stockings filled with gifts to children in the community.

Williams noted that Sunridge and the Pendleton School District’s other schools have done this tradition for 15 years, but they usually leave the gifts with students before they depart for winter break.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has scrambled those plans, and although plenty of businesses and individuals have struggled financially this year, Sunridge still raised a considerable sum to send Christmas gifts to children in need. The $740 raised by staff was matched by businesses and organizations that committed $1,725 in cash, more than $400 in gift cards and several different in-kind donations, including a “huge amount of candy” from Grocery Outlet.

Although Williams said they enjoyed seeing kids again after a prolonged suspension of in-person school, they were doing so with a heavy heart.

On Dec. 15, Sunridge announced that art teacher Michelle Sickels had died. The following day, the school announced David Payne, a music teacher who had just retired last year, had also died. They both died from cancer.

Williams said staff spent the week before winter break trying to make sense of the grief and shock they were feeling about their two long-time colleagues.

Science teacher Nichole Erwin said both teachers used their senses of humor to connect with students. Payne would adopt a comically gruff persona whose favorite term of endearment for his students was “goonbucket,” while Sickels would employ sarcasm at such a high level that it would sometimes take years for students to realize that she had been teasing them.

But Erwin said the fun had with the kids was just another aspect of their commitment to the students. She saw firsthand how the pair of teachers drove their students to get better at art and music, and how the students’ boosted self-esteem led to better performance in all aspects of school.

Sickels was on medical leave at the time of her death, but before that, Erwin said Sickels would still come to school to teach, sometimes using her lunch breaks to go on dialysis.

“Sadly, you don’t always know how much you mean to kids,” she said.

Jill Clark, a special education teacher, said Sickels was also highly respected by her peers. Whenever Sickels proposed an idea that could help staff or students, the other members of the faculty listened, no matter how long they had been in teaching.

“She really spoke up in a way that mattered,” Clark said.

Public school music teachers maintain a tight-knit community, and both of Sunridge’s music teachers, the husband-wife pair Emily Muller-Cary and Andy Cary, go back with Payne a ways. Payne taught music in Pendleton for 22 years, and his decades of experience meant that Muller-Cary worked for him and her husband shared an office with him at various points of Payne’s career.

“He just had a wit about him that made him so fun to be around,” Cary said.

Cary recalled that when Payne was having a tough day at work, he would joke about what he did in a past life to deserve it. Cary would respond with a quip about how life was just making it hard now so he could have an easier time in heaven.

Muller-Cary remembered Payne for his ability to turn students, who were ambivalent about playing music, into dedicated musicians who continued to play their instruments in high school and beyond.

Cary said Payne was humble, and his aversion to the spotlight carried over to his personal life. When Cary and Payne played in a Dixieland band together, Payne, a talented trumpeter, would spend all his time focusing the attention on his bandmates.

Payne lived a private life after retiring in 2019, and many on Sunridge’s staff didn’t know he had been battling cancer. Cary said he spoke about his disease a week before his death, but he still hadn’t anticipated it when it happened.

Cary said he was still struggling through his emotions when he taught his classes the next day, but he felt a sense of reassurance from the flood of memories his students shared of their days with Mr. Payne. He expected to go into the day supporting the students, but instead found their roles reversed.

“But in reality, we support each other,” he said.