I came to Beulah Hubbard highschool in the year 1977, I was going into the ninth grade. I was born here in Mississippi on November 30th, 1961, in the Beulah Hubbard school district but soon after my birth, my father took a job one hundred and fifty miles south with B.L.P. Mobile Paint Company based in Mobile, Alabama. So it was in Mobile that I would grow up until my dad retired when I was 16 years old.
In Mobile I attended numerous different schools, mostly large city schools since we lived in various locations in and around the city, until we settled on a farm in the county out towards Theodore and the Dauphin Island area. There I attended rural county schools like St. Elmo Middle School and Theodore High School. Now even though these were indeed county and rural schools, they were still very large schools, not quite as big as some of the city schools I had attended but still about five times larger than Beulah Hubbard where I would soon end up.
Oon that little farm in Mobile county, my dad would work at the paint company and at home we would raise A.Q.H.A. registered show quarter horses and cattle, mainly beef cattle. On Saturday nights we would hook up the horse trailer and load the horses and take them to the horse shows, it was really a lot of fun and a lot of hard work.
My dad’s health would start to fail him some in 1975 and worsen in 1976 and in 1977 he would have to retire from his job. When he retired it was decided that we would return to the large farm that belonged to my grandparents and had been in his family for generations. With that decision made, we would load animals such as cows, horses pigs and in numerous trips, make the move one hundred and fifty miles back north, “back home” to the rural Newton county community of Duffee, Mississippi where the farm was located.
With this move would come yet another new school I would have to attend, the name of the school was; Beulah Hubbard, funny name for a school huh? Beulah Hubbard was a very small and very rural county school here in Newton county, it went from first grade all the way to 12th grade. You literally started school in that building, and if you didn’t move away, and you studied real hard, then 12 years down the road you would graduate right where you began.
I was nervous about attending such a small school like that, I mean if you counted up all the students in attendance there from grades one through twelve, you probably would have had less than four hundred students in all, heck I am sure it was even less than four hundred.
I didn’t know how I would be received at Beulah Hubbard, even though I had a lot of cousins that were students there, I was afraid I would stand out, I had never been to such a country school, and I didn’t talk like most of them did. I had a little southern twang of course just from being a southerner, but a lot of the people at Beulah Hubbard had strong southern accents, so I was a little timid about going there.
At the end of summer, when it was time for school to start, I went on over with my two younger brothers Paul and Steve, and we registered into classes. The first day of school came and there we were, new students at Beulah Hubbard.
I quickly found out that all my nervousness was for nothing. The other students at Beulah Hubbard welcomed me in real well. Within weeks I had best friends there that you would have thought I had known all of my life. It was a much better reception than I had received at any of the other schools before it. Even the teachers were better. Most of the teachers were past graduates of Beulah Hubbard themselves, and went on to attend college and earn their teacher’s degrees and came back there to teach, they were better teacher’s than I had encountered at my other schools.
My favorite teacher was, well I can’t say that I had one favorite, because I actually had a few favorites. My English-Lit teacher Mrs. Brenda Chaney was one of my most favorites, she was actually the best teacher I had ever had in all of my twelve years of school. That lady was surely dedicated to teaching her students the best she could. If you were one of her students, you would learn, no doubt about it. Another favorite teacher of mine at Beulah Hubbard, was Mr. John Smith, Mr. Smith was my agriculture and shop teacher, and an awesome teacher he was, I do believe that man knew everything there was to know about carpentry and farming, and he dearly loved teaching it to the younger generation. Mr. Smith was also Mrs. Chaney’s father, my english-lit teacher.
Another favorite teacher of mine at Beulah Hubbard was Coach Allen Harrison, Coach Harrison at the time was the baseball coach and was also my math teacher. He was a great guy and an excellent coach and teacher. He was fun to talk with too. Every now and then, maybe once or twice a year, when the class had worked really hard, Coach Harrison would bring his guitar to class with him, and on that day in class, we would do nothing but listen to him play and sing songs for us, I always loved those days. I actually saw Coach Harrison’s daughter a few months back. She is a nurse now at a local hospital, and was assigned to me while I was a patient. She’s done real well for herself, but that doesn’t surprise me, with parents like she had to guide her along.
There were a lot of great teachers at Beulah Hubbard, all of them were special in their own ways, and every one of them would go the extra mile for a student in a heartbeat. Including the Principal Mr. J.P. Hurst and the school secretary Mrs. Sandra Dean, yes she was the wife of my dad’s cousin.
I got to know all of the students at Beulah Hubbard and became very close friends with most of them. My friend’s and people I respected there were people like. Junior Kilpatrick, Johnny Gressett, Ricky Fitzgerald (my 1st cousin) Mark Jones, Travis Graham, Randy Evans (also my 1st cousin) Micheal (Tiny) Clearman, Tina Dean, Cheryl Dean, Jamie Williamson, Dewayne Foreman, Richard (Floppy) Lee, Winfred (Wimp) Skinner, Debbie Whitehead, Donna Whitehead, Kay Hollingsworth, Jeff Hollingsworth, Jeannie Ann Dean, Tanya Wells, Jackie Wells, Scotty Wells, Aliesha McMullan, Michelle Hegwood, Pam James, Jerry Barnett, Micheal Holdiness, Kent Holdiness, Rendie Munn, Randy Munn, Todd Harrison, Byron Alexander, Eugene Alexander, Tom Graham, Scotty Wells, Jackie Wells, Tanya Wells., Bobby Walton, Lori Dean, Cynthia Davis, Darrell Dean, Kevin Laird, Ralph Hurley, Ruth Hurley, Melissa Chaney. Martha Thames, Dewayne Neese and several, several more. I could go on and list them all, but it would be a list of about two hundred and fifty names, because that’s just about how it was at Beulah Hubbard, if ya knew someone, they were you’re friend, it was the only school I ever attended where everyone there, was just real nice people. They were and are all good people that treated you like a friend and brother no matter the amount of distance and time between you. That’s just how students at Beulah Hubbard were. No one had to come to school with an attitude or aire about them and their financial status, not many rich people attended Beulah Hubbard, we all were mostly the kids of farmers, scratching out a living from the dirt we owned. But none of that mattered at all, you were who you were and that’s it, you were liked for the way you treated others not for the brand or type of clothes you wore or the pick-up truck or Ford Pinto you drove. (Just for the record, me and Jeff Hollingsworth) were the only ones I ever knew of that drove Ford Pintos at Beulah Hubbard, his was a pinto station wagon and mine was just a regular pinto pony fastback. Ha! Ha! both our pintos were the same color though, electric blue with aluminum alloy wheels, we thought we were so cool. But ya see, at that time in history in our lives, little did we know we were driving pipe bombs on wheels, just waiting for a rear-end accident to explode us into oblivion ha! ha!.
There was however one terror of starting school at Beulah Hubbard that I had to cope with and I will never forget that. My first cousin Ricky Fitzgerald was a senior at Beulah Hubbard when I started school there. Ricky had been telling me all summer long about this “Initiation” that a new male highschool student at Beulah Hubbard had to go through and that it was done by boys in the senior class, which was of course him and his buddies. He told me that the members of the senior class would chase the new guy around until they captured him, tackled him to the ground kicking and screaming if need be and from then they would proceed to pull his pants down leaving him only in his underwear, and from there they would all together hoist the new guy into the air over their heads and carry him around to the front of the school where the flagpole was located. They would take him to the flagpole, spread his legs apart and they would bump his crotch against the flagpole three to five times in front of everyone at the school, then set him down, it was then that the new guy was considered officially initiated into Beulah Hubbard. Well I am sure you can imagine the terror of learning of this initiation instilled in me to the bone. So when school finally started, I was in terror of Ricky and his friends. If I happened to turn a corner and seen Ricky and his many buddies coming, poof! I was gone, running like a whitetail deer in the other direction. I spent most of my first two weeks at Beulah Hubbard running from Ricky and his friends, always watching over my shoulder and looking all around. Then it happened! Ricky and his buddies finally caught me, I was captured at the end of the main building near the gym. They grabbed me, wrestled me to the ground and yes it was with me kicking and screaming the whole time. Let me think and see if I can remember who all was involved in it, I know for sure it was Ricky, Randy Skinner, I think Scotty Munn and four or five others, I can’t recall all of their names now, for the moment was clouded by complete terror, ya know it might be like one of those bad memories ya block out mentally or something like that. I fought all of them as hard as I could, but soon lost the fight and just gave up. However and thank the good Lord above, they did not remove my pants, they left them on me. They did hoist me over their heads and carry me to the front of the school to the flagpole, and it was right in the middle of the afternoon highschool break time, when everyone was gathered in front of the school drinking cokes, eating chips, dipping skoal and whatever, they witnessed the whole act. Once they got me around front at the flagpole with everyone watching and laughing, they, yeap they did it! They hoisted me up, spread my legs and proceeded to bump my crotch on the flagpole about five times, everyone was lauging so hard except me Ha Ha! I could even hear them laughing above the noise of my screams. Once they finished, they gently lowered me down to the ground and helped me to my feet and asked me if I was ok? When I said I was, they all shook my hand and I remember Ricky’s big ol’ grin when he said, “Welcome To Beulah Hubbard Cuz.” I couldn’t help but laugh with them then, it was by all means a very embarrassing moment as it was, but would have been especially embarrassing if they had gone through with taking my pants off lawdy mercy, But ya know looking back on it now, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, for now it is just one of a million fond memories I carry with me today of Beulah Hubbard and the friends I made there. Before they actually captured me and did this, when they were still in pursuit of me, I can remember thinking; “God am I gonna have to spend the rest of my days at Beulah Hubbard running from these guys? “ I thought dang these dudes are mean Ha! Ha! but they were far, far from it.
Soon after that I was in the woodshop class, I had just started working on my first project in the shop, it was a book cabinet with doors on it that my dad wanted so I decided that would be my first project in woodshop. I worked on it everyday in shop with my teacher Mr. John H. Smith, often called “Mr. John” or “John H” He was a great teacher no matter which name we called him by, and there was not a student in his class that didn’t dearly love that man. He helped me with building the cabinet some, not a lot because he wanted us to be able to do it on our own, to learn. When it came to the doors on the cabinet there was something that I just couldn’t get right, the doors I made were just a tiny bit off and for the life of me I could not get them right, just couldn’t get them to work right and it was very frustrating to me and Mr. John. I fiddled with those doors everyday for a couple of weeks to no avail. Then one day I came into class and saw my cabinet sitting there, the doors were on it and everything, and they fit just perfect. I then walked over to Mr. Smith and asked him if he had gotten tired of my fumbling around with it and decided to fix it himself? He looked at me and smiled and said; “Naw you have your cousin Ricky and Randy Skinner and a few other boys in their class to thank for that help, I showed it to them and told them about the problem you were having with it and they went right to work on it and fixed it right up. It was my cousin Ricky Fitzgerald and Randy Skinner and some of the other boys, the same group that had chased me around the school until they caught me and bumped me on the flagpole, they took it upon themselves to step in and help when I was in need. You see that’s just the kind of people that went to Beulah Hubbard, they never held annimosity towards you, they just liked you and liked having fun with you, and even though they may very well pull some very embarrassing pranks on you, like Ricky and them did to me, at the sametime they would turn right around and do anything they could to help you, just like they did me.
Now don’t get me wrong about Beulah Hubbard, there were indeed the occassional yet rare fist fights between one student and another including myself, but it was usually over nothing serious or important enough to hold a grudge over, and after the kicking and punching and wrestlng was over and broken up, the two involved were usually back friends by days end or at least by the end of the week, and it would not be surprising to see them riding around and hanging out together on the weekend, that’s just how we were there.
A lot of us guys, well I reckon I should say most of us guys at Beulah Hubbard were pretty dang shy, that is when it came to girls. Oh we might like one, ya know have a crush or whatever ya wanna call it on a certain girl at the school but it was very likely that the girl would never ever know it, Ha! Ha! because us guys were just too dadblame shy to show it and let it be known to her. I’m sure some of the girls could tell which guys had crushes on them or liked them in certain ways just by the way we acted around them, because ya know something like that is kinna hard to hide up close and personal, and besides, the girls were smarter than us anyway. I know I had a crush thing on a couple of girls from Beulah Hubbard, but I was good at hiding it, at least I like to think I was anyway, so I tell myself these girls never ever knew and still don’t to this day, and with that I ain’t naming names Ha! Ha! I tried to stay away from those highschool romances because as you well know, those things often have a way of going south and blowing up in your face, and well, in a small country school like Beulah Hubbard, EVERYONE would know it and witness it when it did, so I ran from those situations about like I ran from Ricky and his buddies the first couple of weeks of school.
Sports was a pretty big thing at Beulah Hubbard, Football, Baseball and Basketball. I played football for a little while and found that game wasn’t much for me. If I remember correctly, during those years at Beulah Hubbard the football team was in a bit of a slump, it seemed that we only won about one game a season and that seemed to always be our Homecoming game which was usually against Clarkdale Highschool, so I reckon that says something about how bad Clarkdale’s football team must have sucked for them to be the only team we would defeat in some seasons. Ha! I had to throw that in there my wife is a graduate from Clarkdale and was the head football cheerleader there, so this was my chance to take a little dig Ha! Ha! But nonetheless, win or lose, we loved the game at Beulah Hubbard and every game was a big event for us wether ya played or not. On Friday afternoon there’d always be the big pep rally in the gym where the whole school would gather, and the football team of course would come out, but more importantly the cheerleaders of Beulah Hubbard would come out in their cheerleader uniforms, Mmm Humm yep that was mighty important. It was a lot of fun, and esoecially if it was a home game, everyone would be there and it would be like a huge fun gathering of you and your friends standing around talking, laughing and even taking an eyeball at those girls we secretly had crushes on and looking away from her real fast if she happened to turn her head your way. After the game we’d all stand around in the gym parking lot across the road from Mr. J.R. Chaney’s General Store. We’d stand around for a bit and talk some more and then load up in our cars or mostly pick-up trucks, and in the case of me and Jeff Hollingsworth of course, Ford Pintos and head on down the road a couple miles to downtown Little Rock, Mississippi to Mr. and Mrs. James and Pam Skinner’s house. James Skinner was Winfred (Wimp) Skinner’s oldest brother. Mr. James Skinner and his wife Mrs. Pam opened up their home in Little Rock to all of us kids. They sectioned off a portion of the house and put in two or three pool tables, some video games and gave us a safe place to hang out on Friday and Saturday nights. There we’d all gather and play pool, video games and talk back and forth, tell lies about hunting and fishing and girls, yep the normal teenage redneck country boy stuff ya know.
On Sunday afternoons, after church, many of us would meet up at again down at Duffee say at Mr. Duelette Clearman’s store or Mr. Jimmy Williamson’s store, (Mr. Jimmy Williamson is the father of Jamie Williamson, Betty Williamson and Marty Williamson) all of which are students and friends from Beulah Hubbard. We’d load up in cars and trucks and head out across a cow pasture headed to swimming hole in Tallahatta Creek (We pronounce it Tallerhatter Creek) It was indeed the hot spot to be in Duffee during the summertime.
I can remember well one Sunday afternoon, we gathered up and headed to the swimming hole. Jamie Williamson had his big old Chevy Impala, it had been given to him by his mom and dad. The car was slam full of people, not a bit more room for anyone else on the inside. So people started climbing onto the car to get a ride back to the swimming hole, which was quite a ways across the cow pasture. I remember getting on the trunk, my little brother Steven was with me back there with some other people. Steven was a good bit younger than me and he was on the right side of the trunk, I knew if he fell off and got hurt I’d be in trouble. So I switched places with Steven and I took the outside edge of the trunk. Jamie cranked the car and we were on our way across the pasture to the swimming hole. There were terraces in the cow pasture that I had not taken into consideration when climbing on the car. As Jamie went over those terraces at a pretty good speed, the car would jump, actually it was almost like riding a bucking bull except without the rope gear to hold onto. I was flopping up and down into the air with each terrace we hit. I remember trying my best to find something anything to hold onto, I was even sticking the tips of my fingers into the crack of the trunk lid hoping to get some kind of grip, I felt like a cat scratching for hold on spot. Finally I became clairvoiant or something, anyway I began to accept the fact that I was not gonna make this ride. I for some reason decided that it would be safer if I threw myself off the moving car instead of allowing myself to fall off. Dumb idea I know, but yeah I decided it and tried to time the terraces and time my jump at just the right time. Finally I did it, I pushed myself off the car, just as I did, Jamie hit a terrace and it flipped me into the air like a wet rag. I ended up landing on my head and shoulders first, then rolled. I came down so hard that I heard bones cracking in my neck and shoulders. Jamie got the car stopped and jumped out and asked if I was ok. I staggered to my feet, and said “I Think I Broke My Neck” just then I reached my hands up to feel of my neck and as I did, I felt and heard the bones in my shoulder crackling and felt the pain racing through me like fire. I immediately said, “Oh no I didn’t I broke my shoulder instead.” We loaded back into and onto Jamie’s car and I was expecting to be driven home to my parents so they could take me to the hospital emergency room to get the immediate medical attention that I needed, but nope! We instead proceeded to the swimming hole. We arrived at the swimming hole and everyone bailed out of the car and off of it and jumped into the cool running water of the creek, everyone except for me, I was in pain, I slowly walked over and found me a shady spot on the creek bank and sat down in all my agony in one hundred degree weather. A few minutes later, Jamie’s sister Betty and another girl, I believe it was Debbie Freeman showed up I cannot be sure, I was just in pain and looking for relief. When they realized I was hurt, they both checked me out the best they could out there in the creek bottoms, I think at the time they were both nursing students. Betty told Jamie to get out of that water and take him home to his parents, he’s hurt and needs to go to the doctor. Jamie got out and me and him got in the car and he drove me home. My parents took me to the emergency room in Meridian, Mississippi and sure enough, I had a broken shoulder. Although this was a very painful experience, it is an experience that Jamie and I to this very day, often look back upon and laugh about, and talk about almost each time we see each other, which is pretty often. Ha! Ha! That’s kind of weird too huh? But there a lot of Beulah Hubbard friendship stories and experiences not too different from that one.
Junior Kilpatrick was probably one of the first real best friends I made when I first started at Beulah Hubbard, and we stayed friends, well we’re still friends today. Junior and I had a lot of things in common with one another, mainly the love of hunting whitetail deer and wild turkey, wild turkey the bird that is, not the whiskey, although I think a time or six we may have hunted the other wild turkey too Ha! Ha! I think we both pretty much lived for hunting back then, and still pretty much do today some almost thirty years into the future. Often during deer season and turkey season, Junior and I would skip the morning classes of school a couple of days a week to go hunt them deer or turkeys, heck sometimes when we could get away with it and not get caught by our parents, me and ol’ Junior would skip an entire day of school and go hunting. Ha! Ha! and that didn’t mean that the season actually had to be “open” either, sometimes me and Junior would start our own season, ya know kinna open the season up a little early by about a month, giving ourselves that extra little edge on the other hunters, that way we’d be out there hunting before anyone else while the deer and turkeys were still calm and not gun shy from being shot at Ha! Ha! I might add it worked very well too. As I am writing this, I sitting here thinking, I sure hope the statue of limitations on hunting out of season have expired since then, if not maybe I need to backspace this out cause me and Junior just might be in a peck of trouble.
Me and Junior would go riding around in my Pinto or his truck, scanning closely the fields beside the roads, watching for those turkeys out there. I remember one morning we were skipping a few classes out searching for the longbeards and we found us some, there they were in a field beside Possum Trot Road right across the Tallahatta creek bridge. We spied them turkeys and one of em was a big! Big old gobbler, we had to have him. I stopped the car and Junior got out with a thirty-thirty rifle and leaned it across the roof of my car. The gobbler was about one hundred yards out into the field. I told Junior; “Man you ain’t never gonna hit that gobbler with no thirty-thirty rifle that far out.” Junior aimed and aimed for what seemed like an eternity, then BANG! He fired, when he did I saw the gobbler go to flopping around in the field, he was hit. I was shocked to see that he had actually hit the turkey much less killed it, but he did, Junior nailed that Ol’ Gobbler right in the neck. Junior shoved the rifle back into my car and jumped the barbed wire fence and ran as fast as he could out into that field to get the turkey. We were scared to death, it wasn’t our land, we had no permission, and the season was not yet open. As Junior was running back to the car with that turkey in hand and still flopping around, I was out of the car standing at the back of my car with the trunk open yelling to him; COME ON I THINK I HEAR A TRUCK COMING! Junior made it back to the car threw the gobbler in the trunk, I slammed it shut and we jumped back in the car. Just as we got in, a truck topped the hill in front of us, coming straight to us. It was one of Junior’s uncles I believe. He pulled up to us and asked what we were doing? We told him we were just looking at the turkeys and riding around, the whole time I could hear that turkey flopping around in the trunk, suddenly the turkey got against the back of my backseat, which was not real stable, within seconds the back of my backseat fell inward and yep, the gobbler came in with it, so instantly right there in front of his uncle Junior and I were caught in a lie and with an illegally taken bird. The turkey was now in my backseat in plain view just a flopping around all over the place getting blood everywhere. His uncle told us to get that (cuss word) bird home, clean it and get our asses back to school. We did exactly that. I know I have just sat here and confessed to about ten hunting violations, but like I said I am hoping the statue of limitations has expired and just for the record let me add, that me and Junior were minors at the time these things took place. There I feel better, do you?
Deer hunting, turkey hunting, squirrell hunting and even fox hunting were pretty big things around the Beulah Hubbard area and surrounding little communities. It’s probably a safe bet to say that about 99.9 percent of the male students there were hunters, and even some of the female students. During hunting season it was nothing to see a kid drive to school in his or her truck or car and have a rifle or shotgun or even both in the vehicle, and no one ever thought a thing about it because everyone knew the person was probably going straight to the woods hunting after school. Now sadly a lot has changed since those days, now when a student brings a firearm to school, it’s not for hunting, sadly now days a student brings a firearm to school because he or she intends on creating havoc, creating a tragedy by wounding and taking the lives of as many classmates as possible before they are stopped. But back then and I know I say that like an old man, like my dad or grandfather would do when they were speaking of way back when they were young, I reckon age and time does have a way of expressing itself sooner or later in us all huh. But seriously back when we were at Beulah Hubbard though we had the rifles and shotguns in our trucks and cars, not once not ever for a second did we consider the thought of getting those firearms from our vehicles and harming any of our classmates. Not even on the rare occassions when someone would get into a fight with a fellow student never would either of those involved considered the idea of retrieving one of those firearms for malicious intent, that just didn’t happen back then. Heck even when some of us did get into a little fight, we never fought each other hard, never swung our fist at each other as hard as we could, why? Because we never really wanted to hurt the other.
I am sitting here right now trying to think, trying to remember a fight with another student that I may have had while a student at Beulah Hubbard and only two come to mind and they were so minor I can hardly remember the fights themselves at all or what they were about, but I can remember the immediate aftermath of one of them for sure. One was actually a fight with my buddy Junior Kilpatrick. Ha! ha! For some reason unknown to me now and I am sure unknown to Junior now too, he and I got into it with each other as we were entering into the math classroom of Coach Alan Harrison. Like I said, I have no idea why we got into that fight, it happened soon after I started at Beulah Hubbard, but it was indeed a funny fight for sure. The classrooms were, well they were small, and me and Junior during that fight knocked over almost if not every desk in Coach Harrison’s classroom. I don’t think we hurt each other at all, but boy howdy we sure did destroy that classroom. Then Coach Harrison stormed into the classroom and grabbed me and Junior both up from the floor, snatched us apart and said; :What’s Going On Here?” The funny part is that me nor Junior had an answer for his question, so we just stood there for a second in silence. In desperation to come up with some words, Junior grabbed for something to say and what came out was; “Nothing! We’re Just Playin’ “ Coach Harrison replied; “Playin’ Huh? Ok Now It’s Time For Me To Just Play, Yall Get Up Against That Chalkboard.” He then retrieved his wooden paddle and told Junior to face the chalkboard and lean over. Junior did, and it was right in front of the whole classroom, everyone had ringside seats to this buttwhoopin’. I remember seeing Coach Harrison draw back really high and far with that paddle and then swinging coming down and smacking Junior right across the butt. It made a loud POP! Sound as it impacted with Junior’s butt, it sounded and looked like it hurt really bad too. I was standing there waiting for him to get through with Junior for my turn and I remember thinking as I watched, “Oh My God This Is Gonna Kill Me” it just looked really bad. He smacked Junior three to five times, I can’t really remember and then it was my turn. I very nervously leaned over and Coach Harrison swung SMACK! As I leaned over there I was thinking man that had to have hurt, but shockingly surprised that I didn’t really feel a lot of pain, I was confused and kind of worried, was I so scared that my mind was blocking out the pain and my butt was truly being disfigured by this? Or was it really just not hurting? I couldn’t tell. Then he smacked me again, and a third time, but on the third smack with the paddle, his paddle broke in half and the half that broke off slammed hard into the wall in front of me. Well when I seen that the paddle had actually broken, I lost it. First thing that went through my mind was; “Oh My God He Broke The Paddle On Me, That Has Got To Hurt, My Butt Must Be Tore Up For Sure.” Mentally I was feeling so much pain, but in reality it wasn’t hurting much at all, it was just taking me a moment to get my mind in line with my butt, get em both back on the same wave length. The paddling wasn’t near as bad as Junior and I had both feared it was going to be, and it wasn’t near as bad as the ribbing that Junior and I took from our classmates that had ringside seats to the whole thing. Yeah I reckon ya could say that that paddling was just another good experience of how good life was at Beulah Hubbard, even though the atmosphere was always kind of laid back, it was a reminder to us that no such shenannigans would be tolerated, which is why we all pretty much stayed in line, (To some degree anyway).
Another excellent actually great teacher at Beulah Hubbard that you did not want whoopin’ your butt was Mr. John H. Smith, the shop and agriculture teacher. Now Mr. John had in his possession the ever so notoriously famous paddle widley known by many, and those who didn’t know it intimately, knew of it’s long legacy. This paddle was called by Mr. John, “The Stew Paddle” The Stew Paddle was seldom used because as I said, it had a legacy, kind of like the Billy The Kid Of School Paddles. No one wanted to go up against it, or better yet have it go up against them. The Stew Paddle was about four or five feet long that Mr. John had made himself for two reasons he told us. One; For stirring big ol’ pots of stew he made for rabbit hunting trips and bee keeper meetings. And two; For whoopin’ the butts of ornery young cocky smart alleck boys in his class. I never experienced the Stew Paddle personally myself, but I had heard the legend of it and rumors of the boys who had experienced it and their butts were never the same again, I just made it a point for myself never to screw up in Mr. John’s class, as most boys also made this point for themselves too. I did however see the Stew Paddle on numerous occassions, never in action against a butt, no it was just kind of sitting out on a table or shelf nearby kind of like it was a tiger or some other kind of ferocious predator waiting to pounce on it’s prey.
Yeah Mr. John ran a tight ship in his classroom and shop, he always told us as he moved us from the classroom to the shop; “The shop is a place for work, and seriousness, there are tools and saws of all sorts out there that are very unforgiving of all horseplay and Tom Foolery. And if I see any of it going on in my shop, your little butts will meet my stew paddle.” We all knew, loved and trusted this man, we knew he was a man of his word and spoke the truth therefore we were on our best behavior in his shop.
I do remember one time in his shop a couple of boys from a younger grade somehow got it into their minds to have a little mischievious fun with Mr. John. One of the boys was and still is a good friend of mine, and every now and then I will still pick at him about what he did in Mr. John’s shop, better known as the umm “Bird’s Nest Incident”. Johnny Seale and a fellow classmate of his, one day decided to go into the bathroom of Mr. John’s shop and tear up some strips of cardboard and other paper as well as toilet paper and put it all in the toilet, it actually did look like a birdnest. Well of course this stopped the toilet up beyond belief. Mr. John was so angry about this, he immediately started his investigation to find the guilty party or parties. Soon and I mean very soon, his investigation led to two suspects, Johnny Seales and his fellow classmate whos name completely evades me at the moment. Mr. John as I said was so angry about this, he worked and had Johnny and his partner in crime working on unclogging the toilet everyday, and it took a few days too. Finally they got it unclogged, and all was well, but Johnny from that day forward gained a new nickname from Mr. John after this. From then on Mr. John called Johnny “Birdnest” Ha! Ha! I remember one day I was in the shop talking to Mr. John and Johnny walked up and Mr. John kinna grinned and looked at me as Johnny stood there and Mr. John as he was looked at me said in a slow low voice, “Ollllll’ Birrrdnest” I can still see Mr. John’s face plain as day as he said that with Johnny standing there in all his nervousness. When Johnny walked away, Mr. John smiled and then laughed, although what they did, did indeed make him mad, he just liked having some fun with Johnny in return for it by calling him “Ol’ Birdnest”.
Another good friend of mine that I had at Beulah Hubbard, that I sure couldn’t leave out of these memories is Richard Lee, known to all of us as; “Floppy” “Flop”
Flop and I were good buddies for a number of years, we don’t get to see each other as much as we use to, but when we do cross paths, we always stop and talk of our families now and then we talk of the good ol’ days from back in school at Beulah Hubbard. Flop use to spend the night at my house a lot especially if we’d been hanging out together that night. Many times though, we would not even be together and I’d already be done got home from wherever I had been and gone to bed, and soon I’d hear someone walk in my front door (cause we slept with the doors and windows unlocked). Some nights I would hear my bedroom window raise up and in Flop would climb and go to sleep. Flop was always welcome in our home and loved by my parents as were any of my brothers and me, all my friends were. My parents loved to see them all coming over.
When I got into my upper highschool years, I became good friends with Johnny Gressett. Johnny and I hung out a lot together after school at night and most every weekend. We’d hang out in Little Rock at Mr. James and Pam Skinner’s pool hall. Sometimes we’d leave from there and go to nearby Union, Mississippi or Meridian, Mississippi and do what we called “Cruisning For Chicks” Which pretty must consisted of us just driving round and round and round the one block of Union meeting the same people in the same cars over and over again and never really talking to any of them, it was kind of like riding a Merry Go Round.
Now in Meridian, it was a little different. Meridian was a much bigger town than Union, so the cruising room and distance was bigger, however the method and steps were pretty much the same, as was the outcome. In Meridian there was College Park Shopping Center parking lot, where everyone hung out on Friday and Saturday nights, and from there you’d load up in cars and leave the parking lot onto eighth street and go up eighth street about three miles to the Sonic Drive Inn hamburger joint, you’d make the loop around the Sonic, then get back out on eighth street and head back to College Park, hoping that somewhere in between at a redlight, you’d meet the girl of your dreams. Then after making that College Park, Eighth Street, Sonic loop about a hundred times in a night, it would be time to go home, go to bed and get ready to maybe come back and do it all again the next night. I have to say though, even with going to the big city of Union and Meridian, most of our fun happened right there at the schoolhouse and right down the road at James and Pam Skinner’s place, which was basically to all of us kids, an extension of the school.
At Beulah Hubbard we use to have something called the Halloween Carnival every year, now that was a fun time. It would last all week long Each grade would compete against the other in some kind of sport, usually basketball and the grades would also compete against each other in raising funds during that week. In doing so, goodies and other items would be sold off to other students and people in the community. We’d have raffle tickets on all kinds of things too. All week long this would go on, everyone having a blast scurrying around trying to raise the most money and win the most games. Then it would all come together in a big closing night right before Halloween or the night of Halloween with games set up in each classroom that required tickets to play them. Of course the carnival would not be complete without a spookhouse, I mean what would Halloween be if we weren’t properly spooked right? The spookhouse would be located in the dungeon which is under the gym, the dungeon was kinna spooky all by itself year round. The Halloween carnival was a lot of fun and the night of the big event was just a blast. The next day the money raised would be tallied up and the winning grade would be decided and declared and they would announce the winning grade over the intercom.
It was also during the nights of the Halloween carnival and the night of Homecoming that other types of mischief would become very popular, actually two kinds of mischief, one moreso than the other. During these weeks we’d ride around at night seeking out certain teachers and students homes and yards to roll in toilet paper. We got pretty good at it too, why some of our yard rolling talents could be called true works of art even, they we done so good and with great care to detail. We were so quiet at doing it, which in itself was a great feat when you consider that anywhere from ten to twelves highschool students were out in someone’s yard at night and actually quiet, that’s pretty amazing you have to admit. Most of the time the people never knew we were out there, they would just wake up the next morning to a very rolled lawn. I tell ya, so much toilet paper was wasted on rolling yards back then, that a small country could have been supplied with toilet paper to this here very day I’m sure, but it was more fun to roll the yards.
The other method of mischief that we got into one or two times, not really a lot, we didn’t actually do this but once or twice that I recall, because well it’s kind of dangerous. So don’t do it younger generation. We’d go to the cow pasture, cow pastures were everywhere around Beulah Hubbard, and with a paper bag in hand, we’d scoop up some fresh cow manure and put it in the bag, then we’d take that bag to someone’s house, someone we’d pre-chosen, put the bag on their porch light the bag on fire then knock on the door and run like the wind, jump into the trucks and speed away fast. The idea of this prank was that the person would answer the door and see the burning bag on the porch and frantically come out of the house stomping the bag to put out the fire and in the process of stomping the bag, cow manure would go everywhere. Now we don’t know if anyone ever actually fell for it, because we never hung around to see, and we stopped doing that because of the danger of setting someone’s house on fire, and well, if you burn someone’s house down in the process of a prank that was supposed to be fun, I’d reckon the fire would have just taken the fun right out of it.
I mentioned a room at Beulah Hubbard earlier called “The Dungeon” as I said that’s where we held the spookhouse during the Halloween carnival. The dungeon was underneath the gym and up the hill from the football field team entrance. It was a weight room and team room. We called it the dungeon because it was dark and dank in there, well like a dungeon would be. But don’t be fooled, the dungeon was a hot spot! Now I don’t know if I should really tell this or not, but I reckon I am because it was a part of being at Beulah Hubbard. Located above the far wall of the dungeon was the girls locker room. Well right at the top of the far wall of the dungeon was flood level to the girls locker room, and right in that location in the dungeon wall, a board was missing, it had been removed or maybe rotted away, I don’t know. But anyway that made a hole in the floor of the girl’s locker room. A pretty good sized hole too, maybe three inches by four inches, something like that give or take an inch or two. I reckon what I’m trying to say is, well I’m just gonna come right out and say it, yes us boys could see right up into the girls locker room fromt his hole in the wall-floor. I don’t know if any of our coaches knew this hole existed or not, but a lot of us guys knew it, and yep sometimes we did look through it, I admit to running an eyeball by it myself one or ten times. I never saw nothing but some feet and legs, couldn’t tell who they belonged to or nothing, and honestly to get into position to see feet and legs, you were putting your life in danger of being bitten by a spider or maybe even a snake, because as I said, the dungeon was just that, dark and dank any kind of critters could have been hold up in there and no one would have known it. But I have seen people gathered around the dungeon “Hidey Hole” as my buddy Kent Holdiness has recently been referring to it as. On several occassions many people would be at the Hidey Hole, trying to get a little peek and sometimes I was there with em. The first time I wrote this story, I said along here that I reckon the dungeon Hidey Hole was never found or repaired, but I was wrong. In this new updated version of Beulah Hubbard Glory Days Gone By, I have to report that the dungeon “Hidey Hole” was apparently found and repaired. I have been talking with Kent Holdiness through the internet on facebook.com, now how bout that, the internet?? That is something we never would have thought of back in the days of Beulah Hubbard huh? And lawdy mercy what kind of trouble would we have gotten into if we had had the internet back then? Ok lets move on, as I said I have been talking to Kent Holdiness on the internet through Facebook and we have met up over at the old school a couple times now and walked around all over the school, looking in the crumbling building, and we even went into the dungeon and of course you know we went straight over to the dungeon wall and looked at the hidey hole, a someone somewhere along the line after our time there did indeed find the glorious hole and fixed it, covered it up pretty good too with looked like four or five boards, however sadly today there is nothing to see back there now anyways, but standing there looking up at the hidey hole brought back some good memories, good memories of girls legs, legs that we had no idea to whom they belonged ha! ha! How weird is that huh.
Me and Kent talked a lot as we toured the old crumbling school building, shared stories with each other and talked about girls, and being “spooked” at times Ha! Ha! Kent shared with me a couple of embarrassing stories of his own with me that happened during his days as a Beulah Hubbard student, and so far I have only had my own experiences of my few years at Beulah to share in this story but now thanks to Kent, I get to remind yall of a couple more people’s embarrassing moments at the school. So let me just get right on into that now.
I’m sure most of you remember the talent shows we sometimes had at Beulah Hubbard, oh and Johnny Gressett, brace yaself boy this one involves you too ha! ha! It was when Johnny Gressett and Kent Holdiness were in the ninth grade at Beulah Hubbard, there was a talent show and they were in it. Kent and Johnny were scheduled to sing along with the song Disco Duck. This took place before I became a student at Beulah, and man I hate it too cause I should would loved to have seen this. Here Kent and Johnny are up on the stage in the auditorium in front of the entire school fixing to make their debut as disco singers. They’re on stage waiting for the music to begin both of em nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs you know it. Then all of the sudden the music began, they stood there waiting for the singing to begin on the tape because they were gonna just sing along with the song ya know. Well the singing part of the song never came, Kent then realized OH MY GOD! The record is on the instrumental only side Ha! Ha! Ha! They were freaked out immediately, knowing they were now gonna have to be the complete vocals to this song. Kent realizes they’ve gotta do it all, he elbows Johnny and whispers, Sing! Kent started singing; “Went to a party the other night´ He looked over at Johnny who was just standing there starring straight ahead in a trance of nervousness. Kent nods at Johnny to start singing and Johnny joins in during the verse “All the ladies were treating me right.” I didn’t even witness this performance and I am laughing as I write it ha! Somehow inspite of their nervousness and everyone laughing at them, and along with the wrong side of the record being played, they made it through to the end of the song without forgetting any of the lyrics. I wonder if they still know all of the lyrics to that song today? I bet they do after having gone through that.
Kent told me that after that performance he had hoped he’d never have to appear on stage again, but he was wrong. The junior class plays loomed in his future, and he actually almost made it through without having a part in them by slumping down in his desk as Mrs. Chaney handed out the parts, but Mrs, Chaney’s keen eyeball caught him and gave him a part afterall. Someone had ratted him out by saying “Hey Kent Didn’t Get A Part.” Kent told Mrs. Chaney of course, hey that’s ok I don’t want a part. Ha! Haa! But Mrs. Chaney was ready for that and she said “Do you want to pass english this year?” Kent of course said well sure I do. Wham instantly he had a part in the play. In this play the guys all had to wear dresses I think the name of the play was, “If The Guys Wore The Skirts” Yes that was the name of it, and in the play, Kent landed the role of a Majorette and had to twirl a baton, still I don’t understand how he pulled that off. It’s really good to have the embarrassment of others to share in my own ha! ha! Still though the visions of those guys dressed as girls and twirling batons, (shudder) at the sight, and I can just imagine the embarrassment it was for them too.
One more story Kent shared with me, surrounds Coach Munn’s history class and lunchtime. It seems that class kinna liked to get a little headstart towards the lunchroom at grub time. Well Coach Munn devised himself a little game for them in order to earn their headstart to the lunchroom. He gave em a wadded up piece of paper, and each person in the class had to shoot it like a basketball from their desk wherever they may be located in the classroom, and try to land the paper in the trash can. Coach Munn being the fair and honest man, gave them three trys each to hit the waste basket in the corner of the room. If you made three out of three shots, you got to go to lunch early, the kicker and trap was, that if you chose to play the game and you failed to make all three shots into the trash can, you got a lick from his paddle for each shot you missed. So everyday towards the end of his class, Coach Munn would grin big and ask “Any Takers Today?” Somedays after having failed in all three attempts a few times and having to take the licks from the paddle, they’d question themselves on wether or not it was worth the risks. But get for real, these were all homegrown country boys to the bone, and you know if you put something between a country boy and food, he’s gonna go for it, it’s just in his nature, his blood, and in the growling of his hungry gut. This game was so important to them to win, well not really the game I reckon, but getting to go to lunch and eat early was so important, that sometimes actually often, several of them would go into the classroom during break to practice their shots ha! ha! Then they took to cheating, I wonder if Coach Munn knows about this unfair play they dealt, they started bringing small rocks into the classroom with em to roll the paper up around it to give the paper ball more weight and accuracy, which helped even more than the practice. Now you just tell me, that there is one hundred percent proof of what I said about how important lunchtime is to a country boy ha! ha! ha! Gotta cheat to eat ha!
That’s just a few of many of the good memories of Beulah Hubbard school, the hidey hole in the dungeon, the legs, and many other things, all good memories.
All that remains of the school now are the memories.
Ghosts of the old school are all that’s left, aww but those good old days will never be forgotten, sure those days will be missed and when the old school finally gives in to time, it will be missed, just like those glory days gone by.
Although the old school is little more than a crumbling in shell of memories now, most of us former students of Beulah Hubbard still live right here in the community and surrounding area, we live on the farms and lands of our familys and we carry on the traditions of our fathers and fathers before them. Treating people with respect, standing up for what we believe in, all things that I consider good wholesome morals all of which were instilled into us by our parents, our teachers and our fellow students at Beulah Hubbard.
We still drive by the old school on our way to places like Decatur, Union, Philadelphia and Meridian, and just to visit friends and realatives over that way.
I bet it is safe to say, that not a single one of us that drives by the old school doesn’t glance over at it as we pass by, and find an old fond memory popping into our minds and a slight smile comes upon our faces as if that memory of yesterday was infact just yesterday. Then as we pull out of sight of the old school, we breathe a deep sigh, almost in breavment of the old school where we learned so much and became such good friends.
Kent and I were in the old school Tuesday February 11, 2010, and its sad to say but she is falling in rapidly now as we speak. Those hardwood hallways have given in and fallen into the darkness below. Travel up the main hallways is now near impossible and very dangerous to say the least. She won’t be standing much longer and what a shame I think is has been to let such a building go to waste as this has. She could have been a grand community center, but that was now allowed by the powers that be. Don’t get me wrong, I feel the consolidation was a good thing now, the kids get an excellent education at Newton County School elementary through high school, I just think the old building should have been salvaged.
I visited the school not long after she was shut down, I went into the classrooms and I made my way into Coach Munn’s old classroom and found a fragment of chalk, and on May 05, 1992 I wrote on the chalkboard a line from a poem I wrote about the school. It’s still there today. The following lines are what I wrote there.
All My Friend’s Faces, And All My Friend’s Voices, Still Echoe In These Halls. They Won’t Be Forgotten, When This School Falls. There is more to the poem and I would like to include it in it’s entirity now.
Glory Days Gone By
All my friend’s faces, and all my friend’s
Voices, still echoe in these empty ghostly
old halls.
Memories of them all, and of glory days
gone by, they won’t be forgotten, even
when this school falls.
They’ve shut down your doors where so
Many learned the golden rule, and they’ve
closed up your rooms.
Now for old Beulah Hubbard, a sad fate
looms.
But all is not lost, your legacy and joy
shall prevail in all of the fond memories
we have, and the stories we’ve to tell.
Friendships for a lifetime, never to fade.
Inspite of the demise of the old school,
that in the name of progress was made.
As I stand here now, amid your cluttered
and collapsing old halls.
I still see my friends faces and hear their
voices, as a good memory recalls.
I’m reminded of them all, hallways full of
friendly faces, and the halloween carnivals
at night.
Now just good memories they are, of those
glory days gone by.
Thanks for the friends, and the welcome I
receieved, when I was the new kid in town.
I’ll remember them all, long, long after, your
last brick has come down.
With one backwards glance now, I leave
you with a sigh.
With my memories of good friends and good
times, and glory days gone by.
Jeff Dean
I cannot truly finish telling the story, well there is no end to it, while there is still one of us left that ever attended Beulah Hubbard, her legend with them shall live on. But as for my written story I cannot finish it until I thank some of the people who really touched me and probably don’t even realize what a difference they made. The first is Mrs.Brenda Chaney, the english literature teacher. Mrs. Chaney you’re a great teacher, the best I have ever experienced in all of my twelve years of school and many different schools I attended. I hope the parents of the students you are educating today realize how very lucky they are to have you as a teacher. Thank you have done for me and all of us.
Mr. John H. Smith the agriculture shop teacher, God rest your soul sir. You served as an inspiration to us all and you made coming to your class something we all looked forward to everyday of the week. I do believe many of is if not all of us would have come to your class on Saturdays too we loved you so much.
Principal J.P. Hurst, I greatly appreciate the kindness you would show me whenever I would screw up and do something stupid that would get me sent to your office, and I really appreciate you not paddling me, because you’re a very large man and I just firmly believe it would have hurt very badly. Thanks for sending me to check the mail instead, for I learned a lot in those one hundred steps to and from the Beulah Hubbard office to the mailbox, mainly I learned just how very lucky my skinny butt was back then.
Coach Harrison, I thank you for being you sir, for genuinely caring about your students in the classroom and on the ball field. Your humor, your talents and including your musical talents are greatly appreciated. I am sure there is no student that ever experienced your guitar in the classroom days that did not appreciate and enjoy them and look forward to them. They were a very welcome break to the routine of everyday study and it seemed like you knew just when those breaks were needed.
Some of our old friends, classmates, and teacher from Beulah Hubbard are sadly no longer with us today, for they have been called on to the great home in the Heavens. Though they are gone from us, their faces, their smiles, their voices their memories and friendships will live on with us in our hearts and minds for all of our days.
Micheal Holdiness, Keith Williamson, Jerry Barnett, Darren Estes, Wade Pinson, Betty Jo McElhenny, John (Pee Wee) Smith, Gary Clearman, Mickey Fitzgerald
Mr. John H. Smith.
May God Shelter Your Souls In His Eternal Loving Peace.
Your faces and laughter still remain long after you’re gone, just like the faces of our friends that still remain among us here. Like yesterday walking down the hall of Beulah Hubbard changing from one classroom to the next, meeting a hundred smiling faces, and a hundred people in a minute, that you knew you could call a friend. Nowhere else on earth do I believe such a place existed, if it does, then I have no clue where.
The End
Written By: Jeff Dean
April 2007
Re-Written By: Jeff Dean
February 11, 2010
JlewisDean.aol.com
601-986-4681
