6th Grade at Nankipooh School

"6th grade at Nankipooh School"

After a wonderful year with Miss Ledford in the fifth grade, things took a real turn for the worse when I started the sixth grade, with the strictest teacher at Nankipooh, Mrs. Leonora Powell, who was in some ways more scarey than Nellie Smith the Principal.  I don't recall Mrs. Powell ever whipping anybody, but she sure sent a bunch of kids down to Mrs. Smith's office to get their whipping. A lot of the boys in our class called her "Old Lady Powell".

I was a member of the School Safety Patrol back then, and as we called it back then, I was a Patrol Boy.  Me and Carney were in charge of the street crossing in front of the school, which was the Fortson Road, a Muscogee County main thoroughfare headed north out of Columbus on its way past Nankipooh toward Fortson, Georgia.

 

One day when I was "on patrol" by myself, two boys crossed the road north of my crossing, where there was no cross-walk, which was strictly against the rules.  I raced up to them, and after a brief struggle, I was able to "collar" them and haul them back to the school. There I brought them before the Vice Principal, "Old Lady" Powell, who was in charge since the principal had gone home for the day.  After learning that I had used un-due force in apprehending the two suspects, she released them and took my Patrol Boy's badge from me.  The next day I was arraigned before Mrs. Smith who told me that she was going to return my badge, but that I had been up for promotion to sergeant, and under the circumstances, and also to appease "Old Lady" Powell, the promotion would be given to someone else.

 

Now when she heard that my badge had been returned, "Old Lady" Powell was outraged, and declared that as extra punishment, I would not be allowed to appear on the local TV station the following week, where our sixth grade class was scheduled to preform a demonstration of square dancing.  Now this was quite a blow to me, since the class had been rehearsing for this big event for more than six months.  After that, my career in law enforcement was never the same.  I was bitter because everyone in the sixth grade was on TV except me, and I never made officer in the Safety Patrol either.  Who knows, if I had made sergeant in the sixth grade, I might have been promoted to lieutenant, or maybe even captain in the seventh grade.

I can tell you one thing for sure, I was sure glad to get out of the sixth grade at the end of the school year, and I was hoping that maybe Mrs. Powell would be gone before the next year started, but of course, she was still there, so I had to spend a lot of time trying to stay out of her way.  Looking back on it after all of these years, I suppose Mrs. Powell was really a pretty good teacher, but I don't think anybody would think that she was kind-hearted, especially the boys.  I know one thing though, I ain't never cared much for square dancing ever since the sixth grade.

NBB