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Writer Sharman Burson Ramsey | Blog |
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HUNTING AND FISHING |
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Houston County, Alabama Heritage
Education
William Wheatley:
I was in Miss Ferguson's home room. She was one of the all-time favourite people
of my life - I can still picture her in my mind as vividly as if I had just seen
her yesterday. I remember riding my bicycle to her house on Christmas Eve, 1956,
to deliver my Christmas present to her - pecan pralines made by my grandmother
from pecans harvested in our back yard. At the time, I don't think I was aware
that Girard Junior High School existed. Perhaps it didn't, then. I also remember
Coach Hughes and Miss McCallum, the librarian, although not quite as vividly as
I do Miss Ferguson. Miss Jernigan, however, is another teacher who made a
permanent and lasting impression on me. Although I was in some ways a math whiz
(math theory for me was a cinch), I was a bit slow on multiplication and
division -- until Miss Jernigan. By the time I left Miss Jernigan's class, I
knew all the multiplication tables cold, backward and forward. Math was never a
problem for me again. She was very demanding, but also (in her own inimitable
fashion) very patient. She was determined to "leave no child behind" when it
came to the rudiments of math. She left none of us behind, either. I remember
one poor young girl in the class, from a broken family, living with an alcoholic
mother in the low-income apartments a few blocks south from Young Junior High
School. Most teachers had given up on her as a hopeless case of stupidity - but
not Miss Jernigan. She drilled this girl in class as relentlessly as she drilled
all the rest of us - but when it became obvious that this girl "just didn't get
it," she asked her to come see her at the end of the school day. Miss Jernigan
worked with this girl every afternoon for weeks. Before long, this girl was
answering in class with the best of us. No longer cowering, embarrassed and
hopeless, this girl held her head up proudly and answered in a clear voice when
called on. Soon, this carried over into Health Class (what passed as "sexual
education" back then), Social Studies, English, and the rest of her classes. No
longer a failure, this girl now was able to move ahead confidently with the rest
of the class, and graduated from Dothan High School on time with the rest of us.
I saw her last year at our class's fortieth reunion. She told me that Miss
Jernigan literally saved her life.
I remember Mr. Turk, who was Principal at Young. A classmate of mine and I one
day took a short cut through the boys' bathroom at the end of the day, out the
window to our bicycles, parked at the bicycle rack just below the boys' bathroom
window. To our dismay, Mr. Turk was standing there waiting for us. We were held
in his office for one hour until our parents responded to his telephone calls
and promised him that they would see that we obeyed the rules. I was never more
mortified in my life. Both my classmate and I survived (he went on to become an
Alabama Supreme Court Justice), I to become an international architect. In many
ways, our success was due to the teachers who formed us as scholars at Young,
and to the coaches and Mr. Turk whose discipline forced us to "obey the rules."
I remember a the older brother of one of my classmates referring to us as the
Young Junior Baby Criminals. I remember knife fights in the school yard
(interrupted by Coach Gilstrap with Severe Consequences - strong corporal
punishment - for the guilty). I remember one young thug bringing a gun to
school. He was taken away, never to return to Young. He was sent to a reform
school. He returned to our class in high school, and in later life achieved
great success. I saw him at our high school reunion, as well.
The Alamo (Young Jr. Hi) in many ways shaped my life more than any other
institution I experienced - more than Sunday School, more than High School, more
than Vacation Bible School. All of these were instrumental, but Young had a very
special group of very capable and dedicated teachers whose lives had been
dedicated to shaping young lives. For the first three months of 8th grade, I
hated Miss Jernigan. That soon changed. After I "graduated" from Young Junior
High School, I went back to Miss Jernigan's room to thank her for what she had
done for me. She said, "William, I was only doing my job." I said, "Maybe, but
if all teachers did their jobs the way you do yours, there would be no
failures." She looked down at her hands, folded on her desk, and said, "William,
I am thankful to God Almighty that I am able to do the job entrusted to me. I
hope that, when the time comes, you will also do your job. It will not be easy
to do - but if you are a teacher, and one child out of a thousand comes back to
you as you have come back to me, you will know that it was all worth it." I
wanted to hug her, but in those days we didn't display emotions so openly. I
took her hand, shook it, and said, "Miss Jernigan, I will do my best." Well,
sometimes I have done my best, and sometimes I haven't. Whenever I realize that
I have not done my best, I see Miss Jernigan's face in my mind's eye - and she
is not pleased.
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The Girard Junior High bunch made fun of us. They were from across Silk Stocking
Avenue and they called us the Young Junior Baby Criminals even though we were
the Baby Tigers and most of their parents had gone there. My seventh grade
homeroom teacher was Miss Ferguson. She taught my Daddy. Rip Hughes taught down
the hall. He coached my Daddy when Earl was second string quarterback of one the
greatest Dothan High teams, '38.Seniors '39. Miss McCallum was the librarian and
she taught my Daddy. Miss Jernigan, my eighth grade math teacher, taught my
Daddy.
Not just my earliest memories but some of my most precious memories come from
this old building, what we called THE ALAMO. I whipped some ass and I got my ass
whipped but I learned about life just like my Daddy did back during The
Depression. I still remember Miss Ferguson's Social Studies classes in October
of ' 62 when she showed us how to duck and cover but she also showed us the
power of prayer.
I will always be a YOUNG JUNIOR BABY TIGER!!!!
Copyright 1996 These are my own working genealogy files that I share with you. The errors are my own. But, perhaps they will give you a starting point. All original writing is copyrighted. Webmaster
Copyright 1996 These are my own working genealogy files that I share with you. The errors are my own. But, perhaps they will give you a starting point. All original writing is copyrighted. Webmaster