Sylvia Jones, or as I knew her, Mrs. Jones, taught me so many things during just three years of high school, but more than anything, she fostered in me — as in so many others — a lifelong love for writing.

I knew her for a relatively short time in my life — during high school and the occasional visits in the early years after graduation. But eventually, we lost touch. As part of the last high school generation who clipped beepers to baggy jeans, it was easy to lose contact with people whose life updates didn’t filter into your algorithm every now and then.

So, when I learned that she had died of sudden heart failure on Dec. 8 at age 88, in the midst of my regret for not keeping in touch during her retirement, my only recourse was to sit down at my laptop and write about what it was like to have been her student.

Mrs. Jones was not for everyone. She was tough. She had high expectations and she demanded perfection from an art form where there’s no right answer — but certainly a right way of doing things. And if you took her AP English or advanced journalism classes for the GPA bump or just for college applications, you inevitably became disillusioned.

A longtime educator, Mrs. Jones was already a well-decorated teacher by the time I took her beginning journalism class in 1995 during my sophomore year. She won teacher of the year in Marin County in 1993 and was honored time and again for what she brought to the classroom and to Redwood High School’s Bark newsroom as its journalism advisor.

I was immediately taken by the unique brand of writing that is journalism — its stylistic demand for brevity and efficiency that can capture a reader’s attention. It blended my curiosity about current events with an early sense of awareness and empathy for circumstances different from my own. But mostly I just loved being in Mrs. Jones’ journalism program.

Mrs. Jones ran the Redwood Bark like a real newspaper — complete with a business manager who had to secure advertising revenue to pay for the printing costs, junior beat writers and a senior staff run by the editor-in-chief. It was a place that fostered hard work and a deep pride in the monthly paper that was physically printed into hundreds of copies to be placed around the school or mailed out to subscribers.

The Bark room itself was filled with past issues of the paper stacked in all corners of the room, draft copies of upcoming issues laid out on open tables and students busily discussing stories with editors before the next print deadline. There was an energy and passion that seemingly existed nowhere else on campus. To be on the Bark staff was a time commitment akin to lettering in a varsity sport that competed during the fall, winter and spring seasons. Students could be seen there early in the morning before the first bell and were in and out of the Bark newsroom throughout the days and nights leading up to a deadline.

Mrs. Jones could be found at all hours of the day working one-on-one with student journalists, marking up their stories, reminding them of the New York Times style guidelines and challenging them to perfect their leads. Rarely did your draft avoid her pen. You quickly learned to check your work before sitting down with her.

Her passion was contagious. For those of us who worked on the Bark during our high school years, we fed off the environment she created and we embodied the work ethic, diligence and empathy required of anyone tasked with telling someone else’s story.

I vividly recall rushing out of the gym one night after a varsity basketball playoff game, letting myself into the school through a propped-open door and sitting down to write the entire article about late-game heroics, complete with a photo I took of the post-game celebration, all in time to make that week’s print deadline.

The world has changed so much since those days of publishing a monthly print-only version of the Bark. I’ve often wondered over the years what Mrs. Jones, who used to remind girls who brushed their hair in class that “Barbara Walters never brushes her hair on television,” thought of the state of the industry that she spent a lifetime teaching.

I imagine that if I were to sit in her living room again in Mill Valley, where she used to invite groups of students over for tea and book discussions, she would talk about the need to evolve and find new ways to reach people while maintaining the core principles of journalistic integrity, accuracy and empathy — and, of course, a strict adherence to the New York Times journalism style guide.

One can only hope that there are more gifted educators like Mrs. Jones who will follow in her path.

The only thing I know for certain is that hers is a tough act to follow.

A memorial for Sylvia Stevens Jones is at 2 this afternoon at the Marin Art and Garden Center at 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. in Ross. More information at memorialsource.com/example/sylvia-stevens-jones.