Some of life’s lessons cannot be taught in a classroom. Sometimes knowledge will only come with experience; the experience of living a full life, the experience of being a part of something bigger than yourself or sometimes just the experience of hardships.

Those were just some of the types of experiences that Matt Keating’s AP World History class was able to learn about when students took part in the most recent iteration of the Storied Lives program.

Storied Lives, founded by Zeenie Sharif, was brought to Fountain Hills in 2015 by local Patti Milligan.

The premise of the program is to partner high school students with a senior citizen in their community so the student can write a short biography about their life.

Along with working with Fountain Hills High School, Milligan had recruited Teri Larson, the Resident Program Director at Fountain View Village, to help her match students with a FVV resident with a story to tell.

“This year, knowing that this was a history class, I wanted to pick residents that I thought had a big influence on history,” Larson said. “Whether it be the history with their family, travels, their careers or the military.”

Keating’s students filled out a questionnaire about themselves before Larson paired them with one the FVV residents she had selected.

“It’s interesting how sometimes our resident and the student will share similar backgrounds,” Larson said. “For example, I have two people paired who both play piano.”

The initial meeting of the students and FVV residents happened last year on Oct. 26.

From that point the students spent the next couple of months taking on the monumental task of interviewing their partner and writing down their story.

“I think the hardest part is getting your outline done,” sophomore Andrei Urda said. “Trying to get everything that is needed but also making sure that you write about the most interesting parts of their story.”

Urda had plenty of material to choose from when writing his project since his partner, Bob LaRue, was a veteran who worked at atomic test sites and taught college during the height of the counter culture.

“Andrei is very bright,” LaRue said. “The youth’s perception of events that took place 60 or 70 years ago is pretty limited but Andrei would persist to find out what I was talking with him about and bring more questions back for me.”

During those months of hard work, though, as the students learned more about their partner, they found themselves in awe of the lives they had led.

“It puts it into perspective, really, how much more their generation went through than ours,” Bruin Smith said about his time talking with Max Love. “I mean, my partner was born during the Great Depression, lived through WWII and served in Vietnam. After all those stories I heard from him, and for him to keep his chin up the whole time, it really makes you think.”

In turn, the residents of Fountain View Village were impressed with their younger biographers.

“Bruin is an interesting guy,” Max Love, Bruin’s partner said. “I think he is a very bright guy who asked interesting, and I think good, questions.”

Along with humbling them, the stories that the students heard inspired them to think about the bigger picture in life.

“This project has made me think beyond tomorrow,” Jelina Lynch said. “I feel like a lot of times I just focus on what’s going on now, what I am doing after school or during the weekend. Phyllis, my partner, has taught me to also think long-term and that if I want something, I can get it.I just need to work hard.”

The students’ final projects were presented on Jan. 18 at the high school, where the students read their final draft in front of their FVV counterparts.