OPINION: The noble profession

I graduated from Commerce High School and marvel at the new campus that now graces the city. If a building were the secret to education, graduates would automatically be the best anywhere. But it is the teachers (and administrators) who make a great school. Fortunately, Commerce has those too.

Many remarkable educators have held forth at CHS. And last week brought the news that we have lost one of the legends. Julia Bailey Jones passed away in St. Augustine at age 98. And I have been thinking of Miss Julia and the Jones family all weekend.
The memories of learning the grammar you see here and the style and grace with which it was done are clear. Never one to discriminate against any faculty member on pranks, I recalled one of the classics that we perpetrated.

Only four boys in the class meant we got extra supervision. When all four test scores were the same one week, suspicions were aroused. We were watched and warned. But same scores appeared on the next test. So we found ourselves next sitting in the corners of the room. It happened again!

Miss Julia was confounded but the supposed crime was never solved. Just for fun and to entertain the girls in the class, we had decided in advance to miss the same answers on the tests after the first coincidence received so much attention.
In later years, I confessed to Miss Julia when visiting her in retirement.

She always had the time for activities at the First Baptist Church of Commerce and joined the entire family in the choir We reminisced about the fun we had around the piano at home and performing from sunrise to evening services.

Fortunately, we had others teachers through the years that methodically built the knowledge base we needed to be successes in life. I had the advantage of a good teacher, Marguerite Nix, who was also my mother. This kept me focused enough to be an honor grad; some say it was a miracle.

I took time years ago to visit Miss Maude Hardman, my first-grade teacher to thank her. She gave me the gift of reading and this skill is critical to anything else that is to be learned. Many others followed, too many to be listed here. But I must note that in my life experience, the science deposited in my head by Dr. Sam Vickery was ever useful. How often did I ask myself, “What did Sam say about this?” Doc could teach science to a rock.

Every time I see a Lepidoptera flit past, I think of Rena Shankle sending us forth into the woods to collect insects, leaves, rocks and to watch birds. Amazing how much of that I remember and I still have the model bird we had to construct.

A recent class reunion afforded the great treat of seeing our remarkable band director, John Hambrick. In addition to the extensive musical skills he shared, he taught us how to work together for bigger outcomes and showed us what it feels like to be the best at something. We must have won every award available and traveled widely entertaining all who saw us in action up and down the east coast in football stadia (plural courtesy of Rena Shankle) or on the concert stage. Mr. Hambrick amazed us by recalling the instrument played back then by everyone present.

The sad news about Miss Julia reminds of schoolmates, Hardman, Susan and Carolyn who were her children, outstanding students and well raised as she carried on after the tragic loss of husband, Hardman. Great friends all and the kind of people with whom one keeps in touch for a lifetime. They have made their mother, Commerce and CHS proud through their achievements along life’s highway and for never forgetting our hometown.

A memorial service for Julia Jones will be held at the First Baptist Church of Commerce at 11 a.m. on Nov. 17. We should all be there to sing some harmony for Miss Julia and the Jones family.

Nelson Nix is a retired marketing communications executive. A Commerce native and Commerce High School and University of Georgia graduate, he has lived in the Mid-West and on both coasts.