CHANGES HELP TOWNS NOT ALL PEOPLE

It is a sad day when one section of the Parish wants to do something to hurt one part of the Parish for the undisclosed benefit of the rest of the parish. I often wondered why the people of some areas wanted to close Ogden High School. I even went to the Archives and the Secretary of State gave me the use of one of His employees for as long as I needed the person to try and find if there was something in the past relative to past education that might be the reason. I already had heard and found in the Archives the little exchange about the building of the first Consolidated school. The Bond Issue for Ogden High School did not have in it any money for land because a landowner had promised orally (only) and went back on His word and demanded some funds be paid. Mrs. Liddie Ogden swapped some land with him and the school was built and named Ogden after Her.

One other item was that Winnsboro was delegated to get the first High School but it burned down completely being built of wood and therefore Ogden beat them a little. You must remember people had a greater interest in their schools then than now. Fort Necessity had the first Free Lunch program because the mothers donated from their farms food for the school year, and there were some other firsts by schools that should not cause the people of one community to want to close the school in another community. It seemed that in present times people who were not native to the parish were the leaders in the outcry for closing High Schools. Their reasoning was small schools could not provide the advanced classes large schools could. The Archives revealed the opposite. It was the availability of teachers that determined that. I knew from personal experience as a principal of a small school that finding some one to teach modern physics or Chemistry was big problem if a teacher had not had a modern class in one of these and in math, it was of no value to teach the course.

Now it all comes to light. The politicians wanted it done now so they could get grants for the Towns and Villages and there by use these funds as vote getters. Well some people spend their life “doing good” for their community because they can get some of the money for themselves. Huey Long called them pap suckers. Like the one pictured above.