The Class Trip
Bryant Station School held classes for first through eighth grades in a two-room schoolhouse. There were two teachers presiding, one also serving as principal. When Mrs. Willie Hight was principal in the 1950s, she drove the school bus, in addition. The Bryant Station School in the 1950s with Mrs. Willie Hight and Mrs. Angeline Brown. In 1936, when my dad Jack White graduated from the 8th grade, the principal was twenty-five-year-old...
Homers
My dad was the Railway Express agent in Columbia and his office was in the old depot. In his long career, he shipped all kinds of livestock, everything from rattlesnakes to elephants – literally – without use of a forklift. It was all done with brawn, brain, and nerve. Jack White in a Railway Express office in Cookeville, Tennessee. A regular cargo was homing pigeons, usually shipped in custom woven basket crates from Evansville,...
The Art of Integration
In late February, the Alabama State Council on the Arts employed award winning Livingston, Alabama songwriter Jacky Jack White to work with students at Robert C. Hatch High School in Uniontown, Alabama. Their mission was to construct an original musical play using the techniques of “arts integration.” The deadline was May 16. Jacky Jack White with student. Diana Green of the State Council explains that White and Hatch teacher Darren...
Coach Pete Banks
On April 29, 2019, Coach Pete Banks will celebrate his 90th birthday. Please join us in establishing an endowed scholarship at McGill-Toolen honoring our devoted friend and mentor. A brief biography: Coach Gerald Knox “Pete” Banks served McGill-Toolen Catholic High School for 37 years, beginning in 1957 when he was hired to teach three science classes, be head coach for both cross country and track, and assistant coach for football. ...
The Edmond Jones Family
On the northeast edge of Haynes Cemetery resides a rock-bordered family plot. Contained within are the headstones of Edmond Jones, his wife Louisa Durinda Flanagan, their son John T., his wife Martha, and their children Ludie, Wallace, and Sam. Also, there is the grave of Edmond’s brother Allen. The Jones family came to Maury County in 1828 and settled on 445 acres just around the corner from Haynes on what is now the Smyrna Church...
The Boy Who Loved School
Up on Silver Creek, the blackberry bushes grew taller on the east side of the hill. The dew came off them sooner and the berries enjoyed the sunlight for a longer time. The remains of an old orchard, planted by the first white settlers, shielded the fruit from the bluebirds. “My mother would help my sister Kathryn and I pick a vessel full of berries, then she would start home to start a batch of jelly on the wood stove.”...