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HomeMy WebLinkAboutLincoln High School E. Edward, Jr.I hereby give and grant to the HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE, City of College Station, Texas, for whatever purposes may be determined, the tape recordings, transcriptions, and contents of this oral history interview. Also, permission is hereby given for any duplications of original photos, documents, maps, etc. useful to the history project to be returned unharmed. Interviewee releases, relinquishes and discharges CITY, its officers, agents and employees, from all claims, demands, and causes of action of every kind and character, including the cost of defense thereof, for any injury to, including the cost of defense thereof for any injury to, including death of, any person, whether that person be a third person, Interviewee, or an employee of either of the parties hereto, and any loss of or damage to property, whether the same be that either of the parties hereto or of third parties, caused by or alleged to be caused by, arising out of, or in connection with Interviewee provision of historical information, whether or not said claims, demands and causes of action in whole or in part are covered by insurance. Interviewer _ \I V n/ Sign atire of Place of Interview (Please Print) Interviewer List of photos, documents, mans. etc. HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE City of College Station, Texas 77840 ORAL HISTORY DATA SHEET A ovA2t N; LL O l' ' I• erview Please p int Signature of Interviewe N am1 o e ; Address Telephone Date of Birth IQ kC Place of Birth br,�i.a ,l 'lL 7.. .o INTERVIEW STATUS: Completed In progress Interviewee agrees to and shall indemnify and hold harmless CITY, its officers, agents and employees, from and against any and all claims, losses, damages, causes of action, suits and liability of every kind, attorney's fees, for injury to or death of any person, or for damage to any property, arising out of or in connection with the use of the items and information referenced aboved by CITY, its agents, representatives, assigns, invitees, and participants under this grant. Such indemnity shall apply where the claims, losses damages, causes of action, suits or liability arise in whole or in part from the negligence of city. Date Initial Lincoln High School Reunion - 6 July, 1996 Moderator: Mollie Guin Interviewee: Edward Elliot, Jr. EE: OK, my name is Edward Elliot and I'm a farmer, teacher here at Lincoln High School when it was open. And I taught here from 1956 through 1965. At the time while I was here, I was a head basketball coach, science teacher, and a football offensive coordinator. We had a lot of success while I was here and I left here and moved on to bigger and better things. I went back to job corps (inaudible) from there to Austin School District (inaudible) five or six years ago, after thirty years of teaching, I became a school administrator there. MG: OK, all right. What is your favorite memory of school here in College Station? EE: Well, my favorite memory is that it was a community that was together and I found out it was a very successful group of people. When I look back over the years, I see that through all the kids, that our records show that they're successful. They went from everything from ministers to executives in companies and that's a good feeling when you see people being successful. Teachers, all over the state right now, teachers in Houston, Dallas, all over and that makes you feel good that you were part of something that kids had a lot of sense in. MG: OK. When you were teaching here, what was the mode of transportation on how the children would get to a place with? EE: Basically, it was walking to school basically. MG: Kind of neighborhood. EE: Kind of neighborhood type situation because we had kids that had to cross 6 over there. They got over here. I never really knew how they got here, but they were here because they loved to come to school. MG: All right. Excluding yourself, of course, who was your favorite teacher in the school? EE: Let me think back. My favorite teacher. My favorite teacher was probably Miss Carter. She was quite a person, personality. Plus, she was a great teacher and she worked well with students and she was always in the forefront, because she was part of the senior proms, and, you know, all of that. She was the senior sponsor, I guess that's what you call it. MG: Right. Is she still alive? Will she be here today? EE: No, she will not. She passed about three or four years ago. I went to her affair up in Denton, I think she was from Denton. And they had a big program for her and about a year or so later, she passed. But, I have fond memories of her, although, we had a lot of great teachers here. MG: Where did ya'll do your shopping around in this area? EE: Most of our shopping would be up in the Bryan area. Bryan, and then back during the days that College Station kind of was dry, there was a lot of shopping was going across the Brazos River (laughter). I don't know whether you know about that. MG: I know. I lived here since 1971. I know what you're talking about, yes. All Right, describe the types of stores, if there are any of these still in existence. Well, you not being from here now, you may not know. EE: The stores, the only stores that I can remember is one over here on Wellborn Road, right over there. There was a little store right up on Holleman, right here. That's about the only two stores that I can remember that were real close. And we had a number of stores over on Highway 6, over there in front of A &M and in that area. MG: OK, all right. What part did church play? EE: Church was a great part of this community. That was the backbone of the community. The church was always... In the black community, church was always a major part of what's going on, there. MG: Was there a cafeteria here at the school? EE: Yes, we had a cafeteria. We had one right over here past that flagpole to the left there, was a cafeteria there. We had a cafeteria. That was our center for our entertainment and programs, and all those type things. MG: OK, what was the enrollment? EE: Well, it was a class high school, and I guess whatever enrollment at the time was about; I guess the high school was about close to 150 to 200 kids on our list. And while the whole enrollment, I've been in the larger schools so long now, I've forgotten. You know, we're looking at 2000, 3000 kids. MG: And this was from first grade through twelfth grade? EE: Yea, right. MG: OK, all right. This may not pertain to you; How did the war affect education here? EE: Well, what happened is that we had a number of our youngsters that went into the war from, you know, that were great football players and we lost a few in, what was that, the Vietnam War, was it the Korean War? Walter Howard, yes, he was one of our great linebackers we had. He was an outstanding football player, and we lost him. MG: And this was the Korean War, or the.. . EE: It's probably the Vietnam. That was about nineteen sixty- something. Something like that. MG: OK. Who was your best friend at school? EE: My best friend? Well, I had a best friend, I guess it would be Daniel Mac was probably my best friend. He was a shop teacher. I was in control of the gym, and he was in control of the shop, and we kind of met together in the . But I did, I married my wife who was a teacher at the time and we'd been married, we got married right here and were still together in Austin, Texas. Seeing as how I teach high school. MG: Well, that's great. All right. How many brothers and sisters do you have? EE: I'm the only person, I'm the only person in my family. MG: Oh dear. OK, you've got many down to me because I only have one more. All right, what was your favorite subject? EE: My favorite subject was science and biology, although I taught PE and head basketball coach and whatever else I needed to do. I did a lot of things for the interest of the school. I assisted with the attendance information that we had. I always was helping teachers get their role book right for their attendance. I had a little something going for me on that side. MG: OK. Let's see. If you could go back to this time, what would you like to see, and why? EE: What would I like to see. What I would probably like to see is that I would like to see that the kids who hadn't had the opportunities that they have now, that type of kid because some of the kids we had, they were such outstanding students, outstanding athletes they could be millionaires now, comparatively. And sometimes we now see kids with the grades , but they don' really have that feel to do what they need to do to get where they need to go. MG: Education is not their priority. EE: Well, I'm not saying that. There's a lot of very smart kids out there now, but what we get from news today, just like when we look at the national news, you see all the negative stuff and you don't see those kids. Those kids are something really ... they never get. Their attention is on the very smartest and the worst. And that's the way it is. And we lose all these kids in between. MG: The good meat. Right there in the middle. EE: But we did win the state championship in 1960. We won it five times out of nine years. And seven out of nine in basketball. MG: So this was your first teaching position? EE: Yes, it was. MG: So, you have very fond memories? EE: Oh, yes. And that brings me back to important kids like that. You know, a lot of people go away and they never come back. MG: Do you thing any of them will be here today? EE: Oh, yes. I know they will be here today. They're always here. Out of all the things that would keep them away, financially they can't make it, or they're sick, or deceased, they will make it. They will come. MG: OK. Anything else that you would like to add? EE: Basically, that this is where I started. MG: OK.