Amy Chafetz tells this story about her mother, local-legend debate coach and National Forensic League Hall of Famer Fran Berger:
She went to a funeral recently that many of her one-time students attended.
``They were so excited to see her, and they all gave her their business cards. They were all lawyers.''
Which is hardly a surprise.
Berger, who died suddenly at her Aventura home on Tuesday, taught a generation of Palmetto High School students the power of a persuasive argument. Her teams won national tournaments and produced individual champions year after year.
She was 61 and had retired about 10 years ago due to diabetes, high blood pressure and other ailments that husband Steven Berger -- a retired lawyer -- called ``annoying but nothing that was going to kill her.
``This was really a shock.''
The shock so quickly reverberated around the country that by Wednesday afternoon, 14 former students -- including an Ivy League professor, a former Supreme Court clerk, doctors, executives, government officials and of course, lawyers -- collectively sent a letter to The Miami Herald calling Berger an ``unforgettable hero.''
They described her as ``colorful and controversial, mercurial and madcap, but, above all . . . dedicated to her students more than perhaps any teacher we have ever known.''
When her best friend and former Palmetto teacher Iris Katz of Las Vegas heard the description, she laughed.
''In the fall, her hair was generally red. By winter it was snow-white blond. In the spring it was reddish-orange,'' and in summer, something like her natural brunette.
''Think bouffant,'' said Katz. And brassy.
``She could get an upgrade in the emergency room.''
Francine Blake Berger was born in New York and spent her first four years in New Jersey before moving to Miami Beach. Fran Blake and Steve Berger, both Miami Beach High School debaters, began dating as young teenagers. Through them, their parents became close friends, so that after Fran and Steve graduated from the University of Alabama one year apart and married on Aug. 20, 1966, the two families essentially melded.
Fran Berger fielded her first debate team at Palmetto in 1981, and having combined students from the high school, Palmetto and Southwood middle schools, created the largest chapter of the National Forensic League in the country, Steve said.
The group inducted her into its Hall of Fame in 2002.
Berger lived her job nearly 24/7. Her husband said she'd leave the house at 5 a.m. and fall asleep on the phone with students at 11 p.m.
But she still found time to teach prison GED courses.
Her debate teams were constantly on the road, which meant she was always raising money -- ''bagel baskets, Mother's Day presents, candy bars, roses -- anything that would sell at a good profit, Fran was selling it,'' Katz said. She was controversial because ''she fought for her team,'' Katz said. ``Other teachers were upset when they traveled and some administrators questioned how long the kids should be out of school.''
From her mother, Amy Chafetz learned ``that if you believed very strongly that you're right, it makes the argument a lot easier. People will believe you if you have a lot integrity and deal with the issue, not the person.''
Miami lawyer Richard Rosenthal, Palmetto class of 1990 and a signer of the group letter, said Berger ''was very adamant'' that all of her debaters helped raise money.
He said that she used ``to finance kids who otherwise couldn't afford to travel.''
She'd buy suits for boys who couldn't afford them, and sometimes bought plane tickets.
Berger didn't just assemble teams, said Rosenthal: ``She built a family . . . Everything was for her students.''
And, he said, she could talk anyone into anything.
``There was no length to which she would not go. If the hotel where we were supposed to stay was sold out, she'd schmooze her way in and hold her breath until we got our rooms.''
Ketanji Brown Jackson, class of 1988, once clerked for Associate Justice Stephen Breyer. She's now in private practice with a Washington, D.C., firm.
In her senior year, Jackson won first place for original oratory in the National Catholic Forensic League grand nationals.
Berger ''was over the moon,'' she recalled. ``She was wonderfully supportive . . . I don't know that many teachers who would have given of themselves in that way. Her dedication was the reason so many of us did so well.''
In addition to her husband and daughter, Fran Berger is survived by a son, Charles, of Detroit.
Funeral services are at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, at Levitt Weinstein Memorial Chapel, 18840 W. Dixie Hwy., North Miami Beach.
