fstroupe.com

NOTE:  This page is intended primarily for view by members of the Facebook group “Ole SHS Warriors”.

Though the first year of full forced integration at Senatobia (MS) City Schools was nearly 40 years ago (1970-71 school year), I remember much of it like it was yesterday.  I was in the seventh grade.  (For anyone reading  this not aware of what I am talking about, Senatobia City Schools took a novel approach to alleviate potential and probably expected problems by desegregating the schools racially and segregating them sexually.  The female students attended the “North School”, which had formerly been “Senatobia High School”, and the male students attended the “South School”, which had been “Melvin Cathey High School”.  Previously, white students attended the former and African-American students attended the latter)

Throughout my adult life I have told people about these arrangements.  All have felt that it was ridiculous.  In retrospect, I think that it was a very creative way of dealing with the totally unknown, however unfounded the school board’s fears were.  Then again, it could be a major reason that integration in Senatobia was trouble-free, the most successful first year of any school in the area.  I feel another significant reason was the creation of MHS.

The school year started with summer band practice, which began even before the football team started practicing.  You’d think it would be pandemonium, with the band nearly doubling in size and half of the band not knowing the other half.  It was the seventh graders’ first time to rehearse with the high school band, but even we realized how full the band hall was.   I think most kids present realized that if this thing was going to work, it would begin here.  Band director Joel Whittington never missed a beat, we practiced as if nothing had changed.  Once school started, the boys would ride a bus from the South School to the North school every day for band practice.

I think that once school actually started, most of us at “the boys’ school” realized that there would not be a lot of learning accomplished that year.  I suppose that I did learn something, but it is the only year I don’t recall learning anything of note.  I remember the juniors and seniors wandering the hallways during class like they were daring someone to say something to them.

Coach McLemore was my homeroom teacher and also taught us history, I think it was first period.  I already knew him somewhat because he had married my next door neighbor,  Jean Perkins.  I remember him for two things…his paddle, a huge plank of wood that had a carved football player as a handle and was named “Big Blue”, and his car, a 1969 Chevy Camaro Z28.  He broke the paddle one day by hitting it on his desk, and someone gave him a new one…a 3′ long 2″x4″ that someone had used a lathe to carve a handle on the end of it.  I also remember him giving us “extra points” for correctly predicting the outcome of the first Frazier-Ali fight that year.  I’m pretty sure I predicted correctly.

Something that I now find rather strange was that there was no real separation between Jr High and High School.  At second period I was in the same library class as juniors and seniors, with Mrs. Matthews as librarian.  I sat at the table with Marvin Steinman (who I had grown up nearly next door to), Butch Smith, and David Woolfolk. I know that Marvin and Butch were juniors, and David was either in the 10th or 11th grade.  We were all neighbors.  Seems later in the year they weren’t in library with me anymore, I remember sitting at that same table with other seventh graders, Tim Carr is the only one that comes to mind.

Third period was math, with Mr. Elion.  He was an older black man, tall, thin, gray haired, and always covered with chalk dust.  He kept a rolled-up belt with the buckle removed in his pocket that he called his “strop”.  You could easily tell that it was old, the surface was cracked.  He would remove it from his chalk covered pocket, take the loose end in his chalk-covered hand, roll it out, and slap it on his leg, usually causing a small cloud of chalk dust.  “You boys have a choice…either be introduced to the strop, or go on down to the office, let the do’ hit you in the back.  I don’t know what they do down there in that office, but young men leave this room with their head held high, and come back with a tear in their eye.” I think I went to the office one time that year, and Mr Cathey didn’t spank me.  Mr Elion was pretty hard on the black guys’ appearance.  I don’t think that it was something he had just started doing that year.  Other than the chalk dust, his appearance was professional, shirts and slacks always ironed and creased.

Fourth period was science with Mrs. Carolyn (I think, the annuals are at my dad’s) Brownlee.  For some reason I remember very little about her class…I guess because it was the only “normal” one.  I liked Mrs Brownlee then, and when I had her later in high school.  She was probably my favorite teacher in all of SHS…her and Everette Woolfolk when he arrived a few years later.

Fifth period we climbed on the bus and rode to the “girl’s school”.  If I remember correctly, a student drove the bus occasionally, maybe T-Bone, maybe Bill Wilbanks.  I could be wrong.  Could you imagine that happening now?

As I mentioned before, the band had nearly doubled in size.  It was so large that Mr Whittington had tryouts for concert season due to the fact that the auditorium stage wouldn’t hold but I think 110 students, and it was packed then.  Seems that most of the students that didn’t make it did not return to the band the following year.  The highlight of the band year was our playing concerts at some schools in the Jackson area.  We missed the first concert, one of the buses threw a rod and we spent a few hours sitting on the side of I-55 near the Tillatoba exit.

Sixth period was English with Mrs Lesure.  She had one eye that pointed in the wrong direction, so you never knew who she was looking at or talking to.  I think that she was the first teacher I had that could not pronounce my last name.  Definitely not the last though.

There are many individual memories of the school year.  Probably first and foremost was the day that Carey “Fuzzy” Craft returned to school.  We all lined the hallways and applauded.  Though I knew who he was via his brother Jimmy, and I knew all about the wreck, I didn’t know him until later, when I worked at Reid Morris’ RedBird service station, he hung out there a lot.  I remember that Butch Smith lit the fringe of Fuzzy’s pants once while he was asleep in biology class.

I remember the incident with 6th grade teacher Tilly Hood.  I always wondered if the told story was the real story.  She had an awesome Chevelle SS convertable.

The South School cafeteria was even more horrible than the one at the “North” school, it was located on one side of the gym.  I ate there once, I think.  It emitted the most hideous smell.  I never liked the other cafeteria, even in the first grade…lima beans and corn DO NOT belong in spaghetti, and please don’t put butter and sugar on my rice if it is too cold to melt them.  The only time they cooked something decent is for “spaghetti supper” fund raisers…though it seems that they didn’t drain the grease from the ground beef.

The other seventh grade class had Mrs. Briscoe as their English teacher.  I remember one day they locked her out and wouldn’t unlock the door.  This went on for some time, she finally left and brought back Mr. Cathey.  She retired at the end of the year.  In 1991, after the army, I moved back to Tobie for a year.  My wife worked for the Briscoes for a couple of months, cooked for them and drove them around.  I started to ask Mrs Briscoe  about it, but she was pretty feeble and I thought it might upset her too much.

I lived on Camille Street within walking distance from the school.  I occasionally went home for lunch.  One day I came home for lunch and happened to turn the TV on…they announced on the midday news that Jimi Hendrix had died the night before.  I don’t know what bothered me more…the fact that he had died, or the tiny number of people at school that knew who he was LOL.

I have other memories, but you probably are bored to tears if you’ve even made it this far.