A HANDMADE KIND OF LOVE: Local teacher knits free winter hats for every single Lutie student each year, plus mittens and hoodies for those who request them

Valentine’s Day is often associated with cards, candy and flowers, but at Lutie School, love has taken on another shape. 

On any cold, winter morning, that love greets you at the school doors, arriving on the heads and hands of children as they step off the bus and wander inside for breakfast. It’s found in smiling faces peeking out from beneath handmade winter hats, small fingers curled inside warm mittens and here and there, a student showing off a bright, colorful knitted hoodie.

Those extra layers of warmth didn’t just happen by chance. They’re the result of a special teacher who spends his free time with knitting needles in hand, creating something special for students in the district.

That teacher is Rob Matyska.

Each year, Rob knits enough winter hats to give every single student at Lutie School one, from pre-K through 12th grade, free of charge. He even takes special requests for colors and patterns, making sure each student gets a hat they truly love. 

In addition to hats, he also gifts students mittens, gloves, hoodies and more, so no student has to face a cold morning without something warm, made just for them.

Special days spent with Gram

The yarn of his story unravels more than 50 years ago to Rob’s childhood nights spent in Chicago alongside his maternal grandmother, Catherine Petraitis.

Rob says he often found himself at his grandmother’s house in those days, as she babysat him while his dad worked second shift at a can-making factory, and his mom traveled from house to house hosting Tupperware parties for friends and neighbors across their Chicago neighborhood.

“My Gram’s hands were always busy,” he recalled. “She sewed, painted, crocheted, knitted... She could make anything.” 

And she often did. Her handmade creations became gifts for the people she loved: special afghans for all 17 of her grandchildren, sewn pajamas in countless sizes and patterns and her famous handmade slippers, given faithfully during the holidays.

While watching westerns like “Bonanza” and “Gunsmoke,” Catherine first taught Rob to crochet and then to knit when he was just five or six years old. “I was fascinated by her hands. I wanted to do what she did.”

As the years went on, the family moved (with Gram in tow) to Isabella where Rob’s parents took over ownership of the Ridgewood Resort on Bull Shoals Lake. Catherine built a separate home on the resort property, and Rob continued his close relationship with his Gram at their new home. 

“I could run down to her house and enjoy a root beer or some sour cream and onion chips and make things with her. Gram always had good snacks,” he recalled. 

“My sophomore year at GHS, we had a lot of snow and only went to school a handful of days,” Rob said. “So, I would trek across the yard and spend time with her while she watched ‘her stories.’”

Rob said he and his Gram spent a lot of time together during that extended break from school, making things all while her favorite soap operas played on the TV. “During that particular winter, ‘Days of Our Lives’ was all wrapped up with Trish having flashbacks of fending off her stepfather with an iron,” he said, laughing. “I remember the trial, and how my Gram was engrossed in the plot line.” That time was time well spent and formed fond memories, he said. 

For years, Catherine and Rob continued to make things, which they sold at the resort’s gift shop and at a resale shop in town. Those days, which were often filled with yarn, laughter and sometimes Gram’s soap opera storylines, became threads in their close bond. They were moments that quietly shaped the person Rob would become.

Catherine died on June 7, 1998, at the age of 91. Her handcrafted legacy continued though, as Rob became the homemade and handmade gifter of the family in her absence.

“After her passing, I was the one who made the knitted slippers for my parents,” he told the Times, explaining that he recently made knitted slippers for his uncle, aunt and their grown children, just like his Gram made for her loved ones for so many years. 

Finding a love of teaching

Rob says he was blessed with excellent role models growing up, and several wonderful teachers at Gainesville High School influenced his eventual career path into the teaching profession. 

He initially enrolled at the University of Missouri to pursue a degree in accounting, but during his freshman year, he decided to change his major. 

“I decided I’d rather teach business than do business,” he said. “And I thought if I could be half the teacher of my role models... the Barbaras – McGee and Luna – Julie Brogdon, David Bendler, I would be content.”

Rob graduated with a degree in education and took his first position as a teacher in Kansas City. 

Six years later, he was back at Mizzou, in graduate school this time, continuing his education. He earned a master’s degree and PhD and spent some time teaching business at the university level. 

At some point after that, Rob took a break from education as a whole and moved to Michigan, where he owned a large, busy yarn shop for nearly a decade. 

“Then it closed after the great recession in 2010, and I returned home to Ozark County to care for mom after she had a couple surgeries.”

When his mom’s health stabilized, Rob began substitute teaching at Lutie and Gainesville Schools, while also helping his mom at the resort that spring. Being in the schools as a substitute teacher made Rob realize that he yearned to be back in the classroom, and he decided to go back to school to become certified to teach math. “My first love was always teaching business, but I also had strong math skills – thank you, Mr. Bendler,” he said. 

After earning that certification, he took a teaching position in the Caruthersville  School District, where he remained for a few years before fellow GHS grad Heath Treat reached out to him, asking if he’d ever be interested in teaching at Lutie School. Heath told Rob he had taken a position at Lutie School as a history teacher in 2020, and he enjoyed working for the district.  

“So in 2023, I literally moved back home to teach where I went to school,” Rob said, explaining that he’d attended Lutie school from kindergarten through eighth grade before transferring to Gainesville for high school because the Lutie School District did not include grades 9-12 at that time.

“My first year at Lutie, I was split between middle school math and business, and while I love both subject areas, [Superintendent] Kathalee Cole and I worked hard to rebuild the business program at Lutie – and here we are!”

Gifting hats­ and more to students

Rob began making and handing out hats during his time at Caruthersville Middle School, which is a Title 1 school like Lutie with a socioeconomic profile very similar to that of Ozark County. 

He started by making and gifting the hats to his homeroom students but eventually the effort expanded throughout the 6–8 building, and later even reached the high school across the street, thanks to friends who taught there. Along with hats, Rob also began making hoodies. He’s happily continued the tradition of making and gifting those handmade items at Lutie. 

Each fall, he aims to make about 200 hats in time for “the big giveaway,” which begins in November, he says. Lutie School has roughly 140 students in Pre-K through 12th grade, and Rob says he wants every student to have a choice in which hat they take, so no one is stuck with a color they don’t like.

He crafts hats in every color and pattern imaginable: stripes, cables, textures, ribbing and more, and makes them in three different sizes: smalls for kindergarten through second graders, mediums for third through sixth graders and larges for those in seventh through 12th grades. 

Rob says not every student wants a hat, and some students take more than one for siblings or parents at home, which makes him happy. Usually, he ends up with around 20 of the 200 leftover after the big giveaway, though he says he knits year-round, continually storing extra hats in a classroom cabinet ready to give out for the next round.

That cabinet also holds snacks and food: instant oatmeal, crackers, Pop-Tarts, ramen, single-serve mac and cheese, peanut butter and jelly supplies and several types of cereal. He keeps an “outlaw” dorm fridge in his room, too for bread and milk, he says. 

“No kid should be hungry at school, and I don’t want hunger to get in the way of learning. I feel like that’s money well spent, and I replenish the cabinet constantly,” he said. 

Rob’s hoodies come complete with front pouch pockets, and he makes them in a variety of colors and sizes. He usually gives out at least a dozen of those each year, mostly to elementary students, though occasionally middle or high schoolers request one, he said. Students often ask for hoodies in specific colors or sizes, and Rob does his best to honor the requests and have them ready by the spring of that school year. 

“It always makes me smile to see a student wearing one of the hoodies in the hallway or when they come to me for class,” he said. “I have an elementary business specials class one period a day, so I see every student in our building over the course of a week.”

Rob says a lot of requests come from students who see him knitting or making things at school. 

“I have breakfast duty during the first quarter, August into October. I bring my knitting, and they see things being made. I also knit during assemblies and meetings, so it’s widely known that I’m a maker. I think it’s awesome when someone stops and watches, even for a brief time. Kids need to realize that the things they receive are made, as opposed to coming from a big box store.”

Rob says it takes him about 2 to 3 hours to make a hat or pair of mittens, while hoodies take a week or longer, depending on how much time he can dedicate to the craft. 

“I knit or crochet every day, for at least a couple hours,” he said. “It’s a way of keeping my Gram with me... Plus, I can take a skill that she taught me and leverage it for good.”

54 - and a half- pairs of mittens

Last year, a few students asked about mittens, so Rob quietly filled their requests, handing out six to eight pairs to those who asked for them. Over winter break, he got inspired and began making more, mostly for elementary students. The first batch went up on a classroom bulletin board, clipped to a “clothesline” display, and disappeared almost immediately. He continued to make them and clip them up on the clothesline, where they continued to be taken. He says as of last week, he will have passed out 54.5 pairs (and yes, there’s a story behind the half pair).

“The half pair comes from one lower-elementary kid who was given a pair during specials and managed to misplace it during class. We found it in my room two days later, and I got it to his teacher, but I had made a replacement single mitt in the meantime. When she gave the found mitt to him, he had somehow lost the original mitt, so he needed the replacement—thus the half pair,” Rob explained, laughing. “Originally, my thought was that if he didn’t need it, I could finish the pair. But no—sometimes you lose things when you’re seven.”

Rob says the kids’ reactions are always fun. “The oohs and aahs you hear, and the fun of watching them pull on a hat and sit in class for 47 minutes wearing it, always makes me happy.” 

One moment that stuck with him involved a six-year-old who pulled on a striped hoodie and declared, “I love rainbows, they make me happy.”

“That hits hard,” he said. “In a good way.”

He says he doesn’t always get a thank you, “but you write that off to youth and hope that they’re learning gratitude and that someone cared enough to make something specially for them,” he said. 

Making something else new - a scholarship fund

For years, Rob sold knitted and crocheted items at markets, through consignment shops and online, originally to help support himself and pay tuition while in graduate school. But a little more than two years ago, that income was made into something more - an investment in his students’ futures.

“I have been making and selling my things on and off my entire life, but it became a nice little side hustle in 2012. I just started selling things at a local farmer’s market where I lived and it blew up from there,” he explained.  

“I took on a couple more Friday and Saturday markets through the year, and I found a variety of holiday markets in the area. This all provided a decent second income stream, so I kept on pushing. When I returned to graduate school in 2015, making and selling became a way to pay for tuition, books and fees not covered by my assistantship, which was a meager $10,000 before taxes, as well as helping the household budget. I’ve also had a few very good consignment spaces for over a decade, and they do a great job of marketing and selling my items,” he said. 

About five years ago, Rob opened an Etsy shop, BearHandCreations, as an additional way of making a few bucks each month, he said. “It’s not going to set any records, but at least one item sells every month on there. So I’m not mad about the additional outlet for my productivity.”

After moving back to Ozark County, he made a decision that changed the direction of that income: every dollar earned from his handmade work would go toward funding a scholarship for Lutie graduates.

In just two years, the account grew to more than $5,000, enough to establish the scholarship beginning with the Class of 2026. The scholarship will support a Lutie student pursuing education beyond high school, whether at a four-year university, community college or technical school, with preference given to future educators, he says. 

“A scholarship of any size can make a difference,” Rob said. “I’m living proof of that.” A first-generation college graduate on his father’s side, he credits scholarships and strong local support for the opportunities he’s had.

“My grandparents and my parents were all staunch supporters of education and regularly emphasized the importance of learning and skill development,” he said. “Setting this scholarship up in their memory is a way of giving back and hopefully ‘watering the roots’ that I come from—in family and in community. My Lutie and GHS education set the foundation for my future, and I am very grateful and humbled to call Ozark County home.”

For Rob, the hats, mittens, hoodies and scholarships are all part of the same thread.

“I hope that each student at Lutie knows that they are loved, that people care about them and that someone took the time and materials to make something just for them. 

“Growing up in a family of makers and people who expressed love through handmade gifts, cooking and by paying attention to likes and preferences, doing has become a demonstration of love for me.”

It’s a lesson passed down from a grandmother, now woven into his classroom, his school and his community, one knitted stitch at a time.

Support the effort

To check out Rob’s work or to purchase a handmade knitted or crocheted item to help benefit the Lutie scholarship program, visit the ReBranded by CF store in the Theodosia strip mall off Highway 160, Crossroads Drips & Dips off Highway 160 in Gainesville or shop his Etsy shop, BearHandsCreations, by visiting www.etsy.com/shop/BearHandsCreations.