William G. Stewart Elementary School

Front of William G. Stewart Elementary School (1949–2011)

The back side of Stewart Elementary

Demolition of Stewart Elementary School (August 2011)

Only the razed lot remains of Stewart Elementary School.

Lonnie M. Simpson, former principal of Stewart Elementary School in Minden

Martha Risdon "Mattie" Levins

William G. Stewart Elementary School is a defunct elementary school, which formerly served the western portion of the small city of Minden in Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, with public school pre-kindergarten through fifth and sixth grades. The institution was located at 215 North Middle Landing Road, a block north of common U.S. Highway 79 and U.S. Highway 80, known in Minden as the "Shreveport Road".^[1] It was one of four, since reduced to three, public elementary schools in Minden. Demolition of Stewart was undertaken in August 2011.

From its founding in 1949 until 1955, Stewart Elementary was known as West Side Elementary School.^[2]

History

Under an economic realignment plan, the Webster Parish School Board contracted for the razing of Stewart Elementatry in August 2011 after sixty-two years of use. The school was named for the farmer, deputy sheriff, police juror, and school board president, William Green Stewart, scion of a prominent Webster Parish family, who died in 1925.^[3] Like many of the early city leaders, William Stewart graduated from the former Minden Male Academy, a predecessor to Minden High School, which opened in 1901, and then the former Homer College in Homer in Claiborne Parish. Two U.S. representatives, John Watkins and John N. Sandlin, also graduated from the academy.^[3][4]

The companion school to Stewart on the eastern side of Minden is the still functioning E.S. Richardson Elementary School, named for educator and former Louisiana Tech University president E. S. Richardson, who died in 1950. Prior to Stewart and Richardson, elementary pupils had attended classes in the high school complex on College Street. Both schools were constructed through a bond issue approved by voters after World War II.

Prior to desegregation, the historically black Jerry A. Moore Elementary School (since closed and demolished) was operating in the western part of Minden. In its last years, Stewart was predominantly African American in enrollment, having had some 350 pupils in the 2007–2008 year, most of whom were eligible for federally funded school lunches.^[5]

Levelle L. Haynes (1922-2016), the first Stewart principal from 1949 to 1958, left to become the director of special education at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, a position which he held until 1979.^[6] Cecil Clinton Ross (1912-1994) succeeded Haynes as the Stewart principal and remained until 1966, when he became the supervisor of parish elementary schools.^[7] From 1967 to 1994, Lonnie Milton Simpson (born March 26, 1937) served as principal. A native of Cotton Valley north of Minden and a graduate of Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Simpson arrived at the school in 1960 as a sixth grade teacher. Having since retired from the school system, he remains an active Baptist layman.

Notable faculty

• Katherine M. "Kate" Crownover (1907–1995), a native of Ringgold in Bienville Parish, taught fourth grade for some two decades at Stewart Elementary.
• Gloria Smith Johnson (born 1940), a native of Gibsland in Bienville Parish, taught first grade for twenty-seven years at Stewart Elementary prior to her retirement in 2004.
• Gay Lewis Jones (1908–1996)
• Martha Risdon "Mattie" Levins (1902–1998), a native of Mount Lebanon in Bienville Parish, taught elementary school for forty-five years, much of it the second grade at Stewart Elementary. She was named "Educator of the Year" in 1963.
• Willie Joyce Roberts McCausland (1916–2004), a native of Clarks in Caldwell Parish, taught third grade at Stewart during the 1950s and 1960s.^[8]

References