Forest Park Elementary School, 1600 N. Tyler St., Little Rock, is bringing together former students, teachers, staff members and supporters for a multi-generational reunion from 5-7 p.m. Friday (Oct. 26) at the school (admission is free), followed by a Light the Night celebration with music by Memphis Soul Review from 7:30-11 p.m. at the River Market Pavilions (admission is $50; for tickets and more information click here).
Generations of families have attended Little Rock’s Forest Park Elementary. “I see kids walking down the halls, and their dads come in and say, ‘I used to hang out over there,” says Lauri Allison, chair of the school’s Light the Night Centennial Celebration and reunion.
UAMS associate general counsel Elizabeth Smith’s daughters are both Forest Park students — Sara Cate is in first grade, Maggie is in third grade. Elizabeth’s dad, Dr. Henry Thomas, and his sister, Mary Thomas Benjamin, were students there. And Henry and Mary’s mother, Martha Hill Thomas, was a Forest Park teacher. “The legacy is very important to me,” says Elizabeth Smith. “But the reason our children are at Forest Park is that it’s the best school that we found, the best fit for our children. They’re getting a great education, and it’s a wonderful environment.”
Elizabeth’s dad, recalls that his mother taught at Forest Park in the 1930s, before she married in 1940. Dr. Thomas attended the school for six years; his sister, who lives in Siloam Springs, was three years behind him. “It was a great experience,” he says. “People there were interested in education. Most of us had college-educated parents and we were expected to go to college too.”
Another formidable family connection: Julie Allen, who attended first grade at Forest Park in the mid-1950s; her son Blair Allen, president of Robert M. Goff & Associates, who attended from 1975-79, his wife Katherine, who was Forest Park PTA president from 2008-2009, and their three sons Thomas, Wallis and Jackson, all present or former Forest Park students.
New legacies are forming, like this example from Forest Park PTA president Sarah Cook: “Mine are only the first generation of Forest Parkers, but hopefully not the last. With only three classes per grade, the teachers know the students and their families well. My youngest child, Rose, just entered second grade. She has followed in her brothers’ footsteps — they’re in fourth and fifth grade — and Mr. [Chap] Williams in now teaching his third Cook child. She wants to do well for him because she has known him since she was in pre-K. I know he cares. I know he will expect her best and she will excel because of him.”
Theresa Courtney-Ketcher, principal at Forest Park, obviously has a professional interest: “It is an honor to lead a school where the legacy of educating students reaches back for 100 years. This community of learners and supporters allows people to build lifelong relationships with families. It is a privilege to educate children for their future and ours.”
Forest Park is special to her for another reason: “My son attended seven years and my daughter is in second grade here.”
Bill Worthen, director of Historic Arkansas Museum, remembers a teacher: “Frances Sue Wood, who taught first grade, was a great lady of education. She became principal [at Forest Park] during the 1957 desegregation crisis, which closed the schools. When teachers and principals were purged before the S.T.O.P. [Stop This Outrageous Purge] campaign [Wood was reportedly dismissed for sending home letters with children explaining the school-closing referendum and urging patrons to vote for integration so the schools would remain open, according to Elizabeth Jacoway’s book Turn Away Thy Son: Little Rock, the Crisis That Shocked the Nation], she had a meeting with students and talked to them about it. She was pretty brilliant at putting it in context, in terms students could understand. She had a real following.”
The tradition of teachers has always been strong at Forest Park, “starting with my own first grade teacher, Rose Berry, in the 1960s,” says Cindy Hickman Feltus, a former kindergarten and art teacher at the school. “She was amazing and so creative. She opened a world to us where learning was exciting and fun. I will never forget building a larger-than-life rocket ship and recreating a grocery store complete with a cash register in our classroom. What a way to integrate science and math into the classroom! I’m pretty sure she inspired me to want to teach.”
Leslie Anne Doubleday Heizman, senior vice president at Martin-Wilbourn Partners, shares this fond recollection:
“My husband Eric, our daughter Kate and I all went to Forest Park. I remember all my teachers and the profound influence they had on me (Benson, Balch, Barnett, Deal, Shell and Bratcher, grades 1-6).
“When I attended in the early 1960s, my family lived on Beechwood north of Cantrell. We walked to school or rode our bikes. Doors weren’t locked, kids could roam around safely. The sixth graders, as I recall, were crossing guards at North Tyler and Cantrell. They were dubbed Safety Patrol.
“Our teachers read to us, Mrs. Shell in particular. The Crazy Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler & Stuart Little mesmerized us. If we behaved, there was always some treat, like a square dance or a field trip.
“Pat Lusby was the school secretary for several decades; she was a school mom to so many of us. Kids who behaved got to help with bulletin boards in the hallways, and good penmanship, good writing skills and good sportsmanship got recognized.
“I cherish my class photos from those years — geeky glasses, plaid dresses with platter collars and all … and oh yes, I was always a quite tall back-row girl!
“There were major musical assemblies and plays, and being chosen for a part was a real plum. In the third grade I landed the part of Little Red Riding Hood, and the dialogue was in Espanol!
I could go on, but that is enough for now.”
Read the complete story that ran in the October issue of Little Rock Soiree here.