I suppose most high schools have that one teacher whose reputation is passed from one grade to the next or even to several lower grades with tales of “woe be unto you” when you have Ms. or Mr. Whoever for whatever class they teach.  These tales of what to expect are retold from class to class with each retelling helping to confirm the stories as told must be true and consequently insuring the legend continuing to grow through the years. Mrs. Mable Harris was one of these teachers at Holmes County High School.

Ms. Mable taught English to every senior who passed through the halls of HCHS for many years. I am not sure exactly how many years she taught at HCHS but let me just say she was there for years before I came through school and was there for many years after I graduated. She taught my sister Janis, who was 6 years ahead of me, my brother Silas who was 3 years ahead of me and then my class of 1971 graduates. If my records are correct, she taught at HCHS for over 35 years and during that time touched the lives of thousands of students in a positive way, mostly teaching senior English but also other subjects and grade levels along the way.

Ms. Mable was one of those teachers whose reputation was actually pretty close to reality. What you had heard about her for years was about what you got when you were finally a senior and taking her English IV class. This reputation included among other things that she was a very demanding teacher who expected you to come to class prepared for the work of the day with little tolerance for foolishness and misbehavior. She expected you to be a participant in the class activities, contribute to the discussions, answer questions if called upon and generally to be involved in the learning process. If you went to class unprepared, let’s just say it was going to be less than a good day for you with Ms. Mable.

Back in the days when I was in school, grading periods were divided into six week segments with a total of six grading periods during a year with each semester containing three six-weeks. Students earned a grade for work completed each grading period with a semester exam at the end of each semester which was a cumulative test of knowledge gained over the entire semester with those four grades being averaged together to determine one’s semester grade.

Let me just say for the record here, the grades you got in Ms. Harris’ senior English class were dang well earned.  If my memory serves me correctly, I believe I ended up with a high “B”, maybe even a low “A” for her class. But, no matter what the grade was, I was prepared for my next educational experience in English when I entered college. Though her class was not titled College Prep English, it should have been.

As a normal part of the curriculum, we studied literature of various types and eras with an emphis on American and English literature with some of the required readings being the classics from these literary collections. For many of us, the introductions to these works were our first real exposure to some of the great classics of literature complete with information about the authors, a review of the time frames when published and discussions of societal influences when the pieces were written. Ms. Mable would lead us in deep discussions about the symbolism in the works, ask us to write papers or essays about the characters and their individual strengths and weaknesses, and make us defend or justify our opinions or observations about these characters.

For me, it was a great learning experience in being expected to be a critical reader of literature for a deeper understanding of humanity, human nature and the value of literature in revealing how different events, times, cultures and societies have helped to shape the world throughout history.

Of course, one of the other requirements for senior English was the completion of the dreaded “Senior Research Paper.”  Of all the rumors, tales and stories about Ms. Mable’s class, this one was perhaps the most repeated and most dreaded and the one that caused the most apprehension about her class.  The senior term paper was always assigned for the first six-weeks after Christmas vacation and indeed took the whole 6 weeks to complete. My gosh what a major undertaking this was for us mere mortals of the English language!?

I can still recall the morning we started the process by being given a list of topics on which we could do our research paper. Ms. Mable had maybe a hundred different topics from which we could choose to do our research. She gave us a couple of days to select our topic and then we got started with the project. For most of us, this was our first project which required major research, preparing numerous note cards to support our research conclusions, citing sources, doing a works cited page or pages, and learning how to use the American Psychological Association format for preparation of a research paper. During the research time we made many trips to the school library and even took a day trip over to Chipola Junior College in Marianna, Florida to use their library to help with our research.

As we began the process, we were required to turn in our note cards, a rough outline, a refined outline, more note cards, and works cited pages. We wrote several drafts of the paper with each of these being submitted to Ms. Mable for comments, corrections, and/or suggestions. A few unfortunate souls were made to start completely over in the early stages of these rough drafts being turned in. All the while, the date to turn in the completed research paper was posted on the chalkboard in her room, looming over us daily like some dreaded coming plague. As we moved toward the deadline, some students were right on schedule, some of the high steppers were ahead of the various due dates and some of us, perhaps most of us, were dragging around and staying one step ahead of disaster.

Once all of the drafts had been graded and corrected, it was time to prepare the final completed paper and turn it in to Ms. Mable. It had to be typed, double spaced with footnotes in the correct format on the bottom of each page and a works cited bibliography page of all the works used as references in the completion of the paper. For those of you older than dirt like me, may I remind you of the absolute joy of trying to type a term paper with correct spacing beginning to end, no typos, no misspelled words, no erasure marks, correct spacing on footnotes at the bottom of a page, correct format on the works cited page or pages down to the last comma and parentheses, all placed neatly in a bound folder with title page correctly spaced from the top of the page, your name, the class name and your class section or period, with the date completed. All in all, a really fun and wonderful experience for a group of 17 and 18 year old students, especially the males.

For those of you many years younger than me who know nothing about producing a paper without the aid and availability of a high powered computer with a really good word processing program complete with spell check, automatic spacing, auto underline, bold, cut and paste, and all other types of features, you have no idea of the pure agony experienced in trying to get a paper completed in an acceptable format with only an old fashioned typewriter. Anyway, once the senior term paper was completed, it seemed to be all downhill from there until graduation.

Earlier I spoke of how business-like Ms. Mable was in all of her dealings with students. She was serious about her class and expected no less from her students. Only once did I personally experience her wrath when I did not meet this expectation. First, some background information for better understanding of this encounter.

While I was a student at Holmes County High School, I guess it would be fair to say that I was firmly entrenched in the “Jock” society at the school. I had played sports since my early childhood and upon getting to junior high school and continuing throughout my school career, I was an active participant in the sports programs at school. I played all of the major sports–football, basketball and baseball. I was a starter in all of these and suppose I was a pretty good athlete.  Not bragging, just background on my level of involvement in sports at the school.

But with Ms. Mable, though proud of her school and supportive of all of our school programs, it did not carry any weight in her class that either I or anyone else would put our other interests above her class. When the bell rang for senior English and if we were at school, we were expected to be there.

However, one fine day in the fall of the year, my basketball coach asked me early in the morning if I would like to help him put a new coat of varnish on the gym floor in preparation for the upcoming season. Without hesitation, I jumped at this opportunity to spend the day in the gym, helping paint the floor with Coach Dodson and a couple of other players. I did not ask about getting a note from him to miss my other classes and I did not go and check with any of my other teachers. He had asked me to help and as far as I was concerned, I had permission from a teacher to help with a project and I therefore, stayed in the gym the entire day helping him. Now this really was a fun time, unlike the term paper mentioned above, and I had a heck of a good day.

The next day, when it came time for English, I strolled into Ms. Mable’s class with not a thought about any trouble brewing. It did not even cross my mind that there was a problem looming – just another day in school. But, somehow, in the way things work at schools, Ms. Mable had become aware of the fact that I had skipped her class the day before and had the audacity not only to skip her class but also to do so to paint a dad-blame gym floor! To say she was not pleased would be a gross understatement.

Ms. Mable, though a giant of an English teacher, she was, shall we say, vertically challenged, standing somewhat less than 5 feet tall. This did not matter as dynamite does indeed come in small packages. Then as now, I stood in at a rather tall 6 feet and 4 inches in my stocking feet so I towered over Ms. Mable by about 18 inches.  But on this particular day, when I entered her classroom, she began by asking in a very demanding and disturbed manner where I had been the previous day. Not knowing that she already knew the answer to the question, I innocently answered truthfully about where I had been and what I had been doing.

When she heard my answer, she began to speak rather harshly to me in tongues of a foreign nature (or at least it seemed like it) and in just a moment, she was face to face with me and in my space. I am not really sure if she snatched me down to her level or climbed up me like a step ladder but either way, we were eyeball to eyeball with her doing all of the talking. Something about how dare I skip her class for any reason, much less to paint a gym floor, informing me about the zero or zeros I had earned and basically letting me know that I had insulted her and would pay dearly for any future such acts of total irresponsibility. I might add that this was done in front of the entire class with no thought in her mind about causing me any undue embarrassment or worrying about my psyche. She was all business and made it known to any and all present what a transgression I had committed. My total contribution to this discussion was to say “Yes, mam, yes mam.” several times.

Well, I survived the wrath of Ms. Mable for this transgression and I did not have any other major issues in her class that I remember. I completed the year with good grades and was proud to have learned a lot during my time in her class.

In looking back, she was definitely one of those great, strong teachers I had that helped me to be prepared for college and life after high school. I am proud to have had the opportunity to learn from Ms. Mable. I am glad she was in our small community for many years helping many young folks prepare for the road of life.