Toms River Students' Musical Honors Retiring Teacher

TOMS RIVER, NJ — What do you do when your favorite teacher announces she's retiring?

Some students might bring gifts — flowers, gift cards, plaques. None of that was sufficient for Toms River South student Jack Harjes, however.

When he learned Lee Adelizzi, a social studies teacher at Toms River South, was retiring from the district, Harjes decided she needed a tribute. Not a poem. Not an essay.

Harjes wrote a full-on musical. And then he got friends to help him perform it, film it and produce it.

Adelizzi, the wife of former Asbury Park Press sports editor Joe Adelizzi and a former Asbury Park Press staffer, submitted her retirement paperwork in April. She's ending 24 years of walking the halls at Toms River South, where her children, Joe and Jacqueline, attended and her husband was a proud Indian who graduated in the days when South was the Toms River High School.

You can watch Harjes' musical, "Adelizzi's her Name," below. His friends who performed in the video were: Isabella Archiello, Sage Fernandez, Evan Hilla, Rylee Hussey, and Nadia Hynes. Ryan Svenson played Mrs. Adelizzi, complete with a polo shirt and sweater and sunglasses on her head. Her daughter, Jacqueline, was the videographer. Harjes and Svenson wrote the lyrics.

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