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Kevin Hegg Omeka MetsExport Plugin The software used to generate this document is called Omeka MetsExport, which operates as a plugin for Omeka. Documentation can be found at http://github/MetsExport/ Newspaper Clippings of an Article About the Death of Mary Awkard Fairfax in Daily News-Record Mary Awkard Fairfax Newspaper Daily News-Record Newspaper clippings of an article about the death of Mary Awkard Fairfax from Daily News-Record Daily News-Record James Madison University Libraries April 24 2006 Justin L. Attas (digitizer & annotator) newspaper clippings MAF1042 Harrisonburg (Va.) Mary Fairfax was a ,. belove~< teac.her at the'· Simms·· School · in the . city. Well-Known .. Teacher, ~Second Moni' •· ' t . .'> · ,-, ... .; ~. ])~es At 94 . ,, ,; Mary Fra nces Fairfax. .Taug .ht 4-Plus Decades . . By M ELVIN M ASON Daily N ews -Record Mary Fran.ces Fairfax, a well-· known . educator · who spent more than four decades in the classroom, many of them in Harrisonburg's allblack school during segregation, died Saturday at her home on East Gay Street. She was 94. Fairfax, a Harrisonburg native, taught at the Lucy F. Simms School, Harrisonburg's alr-black school, from 1941 until it closed in .•i966. After the city desegregated its classrooms, Fairfax tal!ght for . a decade at WatArman Elemen. fary School. · ~ In a 2001 interview, Fairfax _~ said desegregation was good, but -j •., . See TEACHER, Page 4 4 Mo nday, April 24, 2006 NEW S illaily N.l'lllJJ-fil.l'cllrb Harri sonburg, Va. Family Influenced Career Choice Of Valley Schoolteacher Mary Frances Fairfax Teacher· FROM PAGE 1 ---------~-she bemoaned the closing of the Simms School. "When the schooJ closed it really killed the .community," she said at the time. In that same interview, Fairfax r emembered her joy while t eaching at Simms, which opened two years before she started teaching there. She said she treasured an old phot o of the Simms School choir. "That's my pride and joy, that chorus," she said. "They h ad the inost beautiful voices ." In the photo, Fairfax is listed by her maiden name, "Miss Awkard," the long-time accompanist. In earlier years, when Mary Awkard was the only music teacher, she directed from the piano. Influencing Pupils Those who knew Fairfax sa y h er excitement about teaching affected those she t aught. Though Fairfax had no children of her own, Fairfax's niece, Mary Ann Tucker, 54, remembered that her aunt cared deeply for ~er students, her own career choice. Tucker seeing them in some ways as taught in Chesterfield County schools near Richmond fo r her own. "She was always concerned 32 years. "She was definitely my secabout her students. It didn't matter if they were African- ond mother," Tucker said SunAmerican or Caucasian," Tuck- . day after arriving in Harrisoner said. "She had high expecta- burg. tions of her · students and for those of us in her family. She 'Lady Of Wisdom' Amelia Jones, a former secwas very proud of all our accomplishments." retary at Simms, said Fairfax Tucker, who also attended commanded respect and was the Simms School, said Fairfax always reliable in what she frequently contacted her for- told others. Jones remembers mer students after they left the Fairfax and her now-deceased brother, Joseph Awkard, as alclassroom. "To so mariy people, she ways attending Simms and would say 'Are you· doing Effinger Street school reunions your best? Are you in school?' to keep the memory of the She followed through on her school alive. The school, students. She kept in touch though not used for classes with her students, and they anymore, is now a center that would always correspond houses several community with her." groups. "She was a lady of wisdom," said Jones, who lives Held Master's Degree Fairfax went into teaching in Penn Lair d. "If she told because of her family, which you something, you could placed great value on educa- count on it." Funeral arrangements · are , tion, Tucker said. Tucker says her aunt, who pending with the Kyger FunerCourtesy photo received a bachelor's degree al Home in Harrisonburg. from Virginia State University and a .master's from Co- Contact Melvin Mason at 574-6273 Mary Frances Fairfax (far right) stands with a group of Lucy F. Simms students in a May 1952 photo. She taught ·· in local schools for more than 40 years. or mmason@dnronline.com lumbia University, influenced