VIDALIA — To the bittersweet strains of “Amazing Grace,” faculty and students gathered in the Vidalia High School gym to remember their peer and teacher Edward Green Thursday morning.

Green, 58, died Monday at the Central Mississippi Hospital in Jackson. He was a retired teacher from the Natchez-Adams School District and was working at VHS as an industrial arts teacher.

The skills he taught included power mechanics and drafting.

The school had a memorial service for Green Thursday.

Vidalia High Principal Rick Brown described Green as “a quiet giant” and “an educator’s educator” who would never give up on a student as long as he or she were willing to work.

“He never looked for praise for what he looked at as his job here at Vidalia High,” Brown said.

There aren’t many young educators coming out of colleges with Green’s skill sets these days, skills Green used to teach students who might not be college bound with practical working knowledge, Brown said.

“We were lucky to get him,” he said.

The Rev. Kenneth Stanton, Green’s pastor and former schoolmate from Alcorn State University, said even as a young man Green had left his mark and made an influence on the other students.

“He was always a man of intelligence and compassion,” Stanton said.

The Rev. Dusty Carson told students that Green would have wanted them to make their lives matter, and that Green’s life mattered.

“One day, we are all going to die,” Carson said. “There will be two dates on your tombstone, the day you were born and the day you died. Those don’t really matter. It’s the dash between those, which represents your life, that matters. Make the dash count.”

Administrative Assistant Linda McMurtry read a tribute to Green while the school’s faculty and staff stood in his honor.

“Yours was a useful life,” she said. “You wrought well while you were here.”

Green had a meek and humble heart and was dedicated to things that were noble and true, McMurtry said.

“We didn’t want to give you up,” she said.

The feeling of the entire service was summed up in the words of a poem by student DeSean Brown.

“We will miss you, and you are gone but not forgotten.”

Green’s funeral will be 1 p.m. Saturday at Rose Hill Baptist Church.