School in Forney, Texas, began again, or rather I should say “opened” for the first day of classes for the school year, 2020—2021, and I feel sure it really was a “NEW” experience. I miss teaching, but what I miss is “shutting my door and teaching life.” I feel that I would have a hard time today trying to shut my classroom door on the COMPUTER. My “hat is off” to all the educators and parents and relatives who are undertaking the new experience of “some virtual” and some “in-person” teaching.
I was born in October of 1950, and I am including the 1950 Jackrabbit Yearbook photo of the 1st Grade Class of 1949—1950, which had no individual student photos but rather the group with the teachers. I was not alive when this photo was taken! When you see this photo and read this article, if you know the names of teachers and students, please call Don Themer at 972-564-6822 or send that information to the Forney Messenger (ads@forneymessenger. com), and maybe I can print the names in another article—and I can write about YOUR life story!
If I had been born one year earlier, I could have been included in the photos from the first grade class of 1956—1957. Most of those names are familiar to me, since I was one year behind them and started 1st grade the next year in the class taught by Mrs. Blackburn in the “Little Building.” In fact, Pat Adams lived in “our neighborhood,” as did Patricia Adams and Paula Hughes. And last night I had supper with the brother of Sammy Beeler, Arthur Beeler, at Rio Lerma here in Forney. Mrs. Blackburn was the 1956—1957 First Grade Teacher, and Mr. C. E. Smith was the Grammar School (elementary) Principal. Mrs. O. B. Johnson was Superintendent.
By 1969—1970, the school district had grown, and there were two sections of First Grade, one taught by Miss Linda Walker and another by Mrs. Saleta Welch. I had gone away to college in far-away Commerce, Texas, at East Texas State University, but I knew many of these youngsters.
David Belz was the Grandson of Luke Shipley from whom my Dad purchased 2nd hand my first bicycle. Lee Anna Yandell was the daughter of Walter Yandell, whom I knew as the electrician “helper” of Mr. Frank Rhea (our across-the-street neighbor) and the son of Mr. Lonzo Yandell, who let David Costello and me fish in his tank (pond) right off of Lover’s Lane. Jeff McAnally was the son of Jackie McAnally who came over to service the auto air conditioner of our family when we lived on Maple Avenue. Nan Riter was the “cute little thing” who hung around our dugout while her older brothers played summer baseball on my Dad’s team, which I helped coach at times when I was home. Richard Smith was the son of Jimmy Smith, who lived in the house on College Avenue, where the Kinser family later lived.
Yes, this was back in the “olden days,” when life was simpler (or so we now think) and when school was more “READING, WRITING, and ‘RITHMETIC— with a little CIVICS thrown in for good measure.”
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