JANUARY WRAP-UP

Tom Pry

Well, Thursday night was the now-annual Hall of Honors ceremony at Searcy High School. Among the honorees was Ruth Fuller, our erstwhile and long-suffering Science teacher. One of her presenters was Bobby Scott Fuller, who was Ruth’s nephew.

Of the event, Bob’s wife, Anita Hart Fuller, says, “The do last night was really nice. So many old classmates it was like a big reunion, which is the point I guess. TONS of pics on http://www.searcysports.com/ Do you know this website?”

Well, sort of, since they are advertisers on MyTownTV, for whom I’m privileged to do some consulting work. I was not aware that Wally Jarratt and his colleagues did events other than sporting, but obviously they do. The above picture of Bob is some of Wally’s work, as is this photo of Mrs. Everlyn Green, SHS’s first African-American teacher.

In accepting her honor, Green said that the importance of education is “So that all can feel the exhilaration of a well-spent life.” The other teacher acknowledged was Bobbie Coleman, and the other three distinguished Searcy alumni were Don Christian, Dr. J.D. Patterson and Reverend Emil Williams.

SURE you remember Golden Boy Don Christian, don’t you? Went on to the U of A and became the Razorback Quarterback. Thought you could handle a little memory-nudging, so here it is.


Incidentally, from Philip Holsinger’s piece in the Citizen about the Hall of Honor ceremony: “When Green’s name was called to come forward and except the honor, she was rewarded with a standing ovation.”

We subtract 10 points from the score of anyone who can’t immediately spot the error in that simple sentence.

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Moving on ….

This letter appeared in the Citizen Friday:

Dear Editor: I’m wondering, is newer always better? Two of Searcy’s (which equates to White County) landmarks have met the wrecking ball in the past few months. First the Truman Baker building made way for a drug store, now a beautiful, structurally sound grain silo has been leveled to make room for another Burger King. The Truman Baker building was home to the Arkansas National Guard’s 139th Infantry.

I know those two pieces of real estate are prime because of their locations, but I ask, can history not be incorporated into urban spawl? Did Searcy really need another drug store? Does it really need another place to eat hamburgers? If so, couldn’t those older and beautiful buildings have been used some way instead of another pre-fabricated steel building?

I hope Searcy’s planning commission will ask these questions in the future. Sometimes our future lies in our past.

Jerry Case
Bald Knob

I reprint Jerry’s letter because he put it very well. The grain silo to which he refers is down by the confluence of South Main Street and Beebe-Capps, and used to belong to Kelso Feeds (now THERE’S a name out of the past!). This is how it looked the day Jerry’s letter was published and, by thiis time next week, it’ll be leveled. They’re having a tough time with it, though: it was made with poured concrete with rebar all through it and it’s not going easy.

Good.

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Finally, editorial comment from yours truly …

A couple of weeks ago, in first commenting on Everlyn Green’s nomination to the Hall of Honors, I commented on the fact that most of uis never met any of our peers at the White County Training School, the black counterpart to SHS, which was lily-white until 1964 (with the exception of Ollie Mae Dockens, who was a lunchroom employee, not a student or faculty member), and went on to hypothesize that perhaps 50th reunions might be the time to rectify that.

I expected almost everything but what I got: total and complete silence.

I guess this is another of my bright ideas whose time will never come.