It was a warm late spring afternoon in 1968 when Faye Nelson, my seventh-grade teacher, decided to take an impromptu, after lunch, field trip to the Carteret County Courthouse. It was a short walk from Beaufort Central Middle School, down Queen Street and then a right on Cedar, with 25 pre-delinquents in tow. I am not sure it was announced, or if she had a shred of parental permission, but there we were, filling the back three rows of a session of open court.
