English teacher Kevin Cummins entertained the upper school at morning meeting, singing two songs to pay tribute to Woody Guthrie, the singer-songwriter born in Oklahoma in 1912. Mr. Cummins introduced Woody Guthrie as a songwriting mentor. “Mentor is a character is Homer’s The Odyssey,” Mr. Cummins said. As Mentor is a wise elder to Odysseus and Odysseus’s son, Telemakhos, so is Woody Guthrie a wise elder to songwriters’ Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Billy Bragg. Mr. Cummins claimed all of these songwriters as his mentors. To celebrate Guthrie’s centennial and honor him as a songwriting mentor, Mr. Cummins sang two songs—one written by Guthrie and one written by Mr. Cummins. Mr. Cummins sings Woody Guthrie’s Ballad of “Pretty Boy Floyd” andhis own, “Uncle Henry."