Louise Durham Elementary School

Final day of Coding Camp at Louise Durham Elementary. The kids had a Blast!

The summer of learning continues for teachers at Louise Durham Elementary. Several attended a conference conference at DeQueen called “Personal Climate & Culture” featuring teacher/comedian Gerry Brooks. https://www.youtube.com/c/GerryBrooks

The History of Mena Public Schools Part 3: In September 1907, Louise Durham became principal of Southside School. The school population had continued to increase and Mrs. Mershon’s primary enrollment of 113 was exceeded by Miss Durham’s room enrollment of 125. Some years later, when Mrs. Mershon and Miss Durham were reflecting back on their years of heavy enrollment they asked, “How did we ever manage it?” One replied in the familiar saying of a Polk County pioneer, “If en we hatter… we hatter.” Fortunately the pupils seemed most eager to learn and there were very few distractions to interfere with the school life. The home, the school, and the church were the three institutions that most influenced a child’s life. Besides a place of learning, the school was also a place for satisfying their cravings for social life and recreation. The Southside School had a baseball team of which it was justly proud. The team sometimes played inter-school games with the fifth and sixth grades of Central School, the Lutheran School, and St. Joseph’s Academy. Usually the Southside team was the winning team. County school fairs were popular from 1907 until 1920. By 1908 there were 1200 school children in the three wards and it became necessary to plan for a separate building for high school students. In 1908 Mena graduated four students, all female. In 1909 the first unit of the high school building had been erected. It was built on the corner of Magnolia Avenue and Eleventh Street at a cost of $12,000. The superintendent was W. T. Adams. It was during this school year that the school paper, “The High School Yell” made its first appearance. Dorothy Shaver was editor-in-chief. The “Yell” was published for a number of years and often contained articles and poems of real merit and special interest to the student body. The class of 1909 was also all young ladies. The ten graduating members of the class received their diplomas at the Opera House. An admission of .25 cents was charged to attend the graduation exercises in order to help pay for class expenses. The first football game was played in 1912. In the game the Bearcats played DeQueen. DeQueen won by a score of 20-6. There were only thirteen boys on the Mena squad. Additionally, only two boys had ever even seen a game. One eyewitness said, “The small squad made up for lack of knowledge by rough play.” The high school did not have electric lights until the class of 1914 had lights installed as their graduation gift back to the school. Check out Part 4 next Wednesday.

It was a fun jam-packed afternoon at the Economics from Hero to Hero day camp at Louise Durham Elementary! We acted out our own community, became specialists in an assembly line, played lots of games, and had a very special guest, Mayor Seth Smith!!!

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Day 1 of Creative Camp and our HEROES got to design and make their own keychains!

The Whitt & Watkins Basketball Academy began on Thursday at the Union Bank Center. The morning session is for 1st-8th grades & the afternoon session is for 9th-12th grades. It continues on Friday & Saturday. GO BEARCATS !!!

Mena leaders are attending training with the DeQueen Mena Education Service Cooperative at Degray State Park this week. Administrators from schools across the DMESC area are attending.

These HEROES will be coding pros in no time! Coding Camp continues at Louise Durham Elementary.

Mena teachers are already learning new skills to help with engaging lessons. Tuesday at HHE they were participating in Summer PD learning how to use new technology… BenQ interactive panels have been installed & will help teachers interact with students.

The history of Mena Public Schools! Part 2: In 1901 the schools were under the supervision of S. H. Allen a graduate of Ouachita College. Mena had made such rapid progress by this time that they had built and furnished three buildings containing eight large rooms of the common school grades. Central School was built in 1904. This two story red brick building was erected on the site where the First Baptist Church is now located. There were eight classrooms and one teacher for each grade first through eighth. There were times when enrollment in each room might reach 55 or 60 students for each teacher. A high wire fence was stretched from the front porch to Port Arthur Avenue to separate the girls on one side toward the library and the boys on the ninth street side. In each room was a large stove. The custodian really had to get up early to start eight separate fires and keep two full coal buckets in each of the rooms. He would go around sometimes three times a day to put the coal in the stoves. Only occasionally did the teacher have to perform this task. All the school children were suppose to bring a cup from home since the Janssen Park Spring was the only source of drinking water. Paper cups had not been introduced as yet. Teachers had spring duty in those days. The children went by rooms to the park to get water three times a day. The children did not take the drinking cups home. It was thought that the construction of the Central School would accommodate the school population for some time to come, but by 1905 it was necessary to provide other facilities as those housing the school population of the new boom-town of Mena were greatly over-worked. The first buildings that had been erected for school purposes were bulging with children. To provide further housing facilities, the Southside Ward School was built. This was a neat frame building of two rooms. At this time the late and much beloved Prof. W. T. Adams had supervision of the schools. He was untiring in his efforts to build up the city schools. Mrs. Ruby Grant was the first principal of the new school. Miss Mable Adams, now Mrs. John Mershon, was the primary teacher. Mrs. John Mershon had a room enrollment of 113 pupils. The town of Mena continued to grow rapidly and by 1907 it was necessary to add another room to the Ward building. Check bac next Wednesday for part 3!

Day 1 of Mrs. Ricker's Coding camp at Louise Durham Elementary! Our HEROES are having a blast!

The Little Ladycats Camp got underway on Wednesday at the Union Bank Center. It was a great first day with 60 campers. We will welcome any new campers Thursday, $30.

Mena Public Schools will offer breakfast and/or lunch to anyone 18 and under free of charge beginning June 6th,2022 through June 30th 2022. Locations are: Louise Durham Elementary 106 N. Reine in Mena on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Mena Middle School, 700 S Morrow St. Monday -Thursday. Times are 8:00am to 8:30am for breakfast, 12:00pm to 12:30pm for lunch.

The Mena Public Schools Year End Celebration was held on Tuesday in the Performing Arts Center. A number of employees were recognized for their years of service. 1 YEAR MADYSON BIRTCHER JAMIE GROGAN WANALYNN ALEXANDER JORDAN BAILEY REAGAN BLACK ALEXA BREWER BRIANNE BURFORD CHRISTIE CHANDLER VINCENT COLEMAN LANA COOGAN HANNAH CRAFTON SHANDA CRAIG CARRI CRANFORD AUDRA CUMMINGS SHELBY GARCIA ERIN GRANT LEANNA HARPER JESSICA HUGHES AMBER LABERTEW SHANNON LYLE KRISTEN MANASCO MALLORY MCCONNELL CHERISH MICHAEL ABBY MINTON ISAAC MINTON REAGAN PETERS ASHLKEY PREGON JAQUELINE REDFEARN LISA ROBERTS KRISTI SCHULLER AILEEN SIRKIS KATHRYN SMITH ABIGAIL TILLEY TIMOTHY WALSTON COURTNEY WARREN ERIKA WILLIAMS BRIANNA PETERS LIBERTY JACOT 5 YEAR SARAH BILLINGS RACHEL CARTER DANIEL HENDRIX ALYSSA HOSTETLER CHARMAINE MARTIN KENNEDY MCCORMICK JILL NEWBOLT CYNTIA STANDRIDGE LEAH TAYLOR 10 YEAR KRYSTAL BOYD PEGGY FOSTER LORRIE HENRY TIFFANY LUTTMER AMY MONTGOMERY LINDA SHELLEY TERESA TORIX SCOTT WRIGHT 15 YEARS CE;ESTE ASHCRAFT DIANNE HUNTER MITCH MILNE SHERMA PETERS DEE SMITH HEATHER GOSS 25 YEARS STACI BROOKS DALYNNE RANDOLPH NATHAN STONE 30+ YEARS LEO BARGE TODD COOGAN TERESA CLARK BECKY RICHARDSON MEGAN TIBBS BRYAN MAYE PATTY OGLESBY ANNITA HENDRIX RETIREES RODNEY PURVIS LINDA COLLINS JIMMA HOLDER KAREN PURVIS

Mrs. Warren's class at Louise Durham Elementary is celebrating the end of second grade cozied up by the fire at Camp Read S'more!

Mena Pre K Graduation was held Tuesday evening in the Performing Arts Center. What a great look group of young people. We can't wait to see what the rest of their journey with us has in store.

Leanna Harper's students at Louise Durham Elementary have been discussing motors and their function in boats and cars.

Louise Durham kindergarteners enjoyed two presentations on Friday. Erin Anderle from Happy Tails Pet Services brought Olive and explained how she had trained her. Whitney Watson from Union Bank talked about money and the importance of saving.

Tune in FM101 on Monday, May 16th & listen for RAYDEN MARSHALL. Rayden will have this week's report from Louise Durham Elementary during Bearcat News. Only on Mena Public Schools Radio at 5:30am 6:00am 6:30am 7:00am 7:30am 8:00am Noon 12:30pm 3:00pm 3:30pm