SALENA ZITO: Vance homecoming: The recovery and redemption arc of Beverly Aikins.

Last year, when covering Vance visiting one of the Great Oaks Career Campuses, a vocational-technical school system in Cincinnati, I watched him walk into the surgical technology class and see something very familiar to him: students practicing having their blood drawn for final exams — something he told the classroom his mother used to practice on him when she was in nursing school.

Vance was only there to observe the class, but when he noticed that one of the students was anxious about having her blood drawn by her classmate, he casually removed his suit jacket and offered to take her place. When no objection from the teacher or students materialized, he sat down, rolled up his sleeves, and smiled.

He explained he had some experience with this with his mother to the nervous student about to stick a needle in his arm. Vance said quietly, “Don’t be nervous. If you have to do it again, it’s fine with me. I am here for you until you get it right.”

Good for him. I had a similar experience when I was a pretty new professor. The university had “operation health check” at the student center, where you could get your blood pressure taken, have some blood drawn for free bloodwork, and the like. The catch was that it was all done by nursing students. The poor girl who was assigned to draw my blood was super nervous and couldn’t get the vein — which is unusual, because I have “good veins” according to pretty much everyone who’s ever drawn my blood. I let her keep trying until she got it, on like the fifth or sixth try. But I figured if she quit then she’d have a complex forever. Pretty much my whole forearm was black and blue and green later, but it was worth it. After all, I’m a teacher.