Each week, the Shreveport-Bossier Journal’s Tony Taglavore takes to lunch a local person – someone who is well-known, successful, and/or influential, and asks, “What’s Your Story?”
By TONY TAGLAVORE, Journal Services
Going to a catholic school didn’t deter her from being a “mischievous” student.
“The nuns would walk by, and I would be the instigator. We had these straight pins. We would take them and put a little bit of thread on the end. (The nuns) wore the full habit, so we would take these needles – this is bad – and throw them at the nun’s skirts as they were walking by . . . . When the nuns sat down, the pens would stick them.”
But some of her shenanigans weren’t all in good fun.
“This kid was so hungry. Me, being a hateful person, would peel a banana, roll it in the dirt, and give it to him. He would eat it.”
My goodness. So, whatever came of this child heathen? Is she in prison?
No, just the opposite. Julie Edwards is retiring after 40 years as a beloved speech and communications teacher at Parkway High School. Add in the four years she spent as a student, and Edwards has been at the Bossier City school “more than half my life, every day of my life, at the same place 44 years.”
Julie told me her life story during lunch at a place she chose, The Library on Fern. The 66-year-old dined on a cup of tomato basil soup and half of a chicken salad croissant, and had water to drink. I enjoyed a half Ceasar salad, a half chicken salad sandwich, and water with lemon.
“It was fun,” Julie said of her early years in the classroom. “Now, the discipline is tightened. The dress code is tightened. The cell phone issues, thank goodness, have gotten tightened. But in 1984 and 1985, it was like the kids had fun . . . . There was a lot of trust. We used to leave our front door unlocked. My kids in class today are like, ‘What?’ Those were the good ‘old days.”
While going to elementary school at Christ the King, Julie decided she wanted to be a nun when she grew up. After all, Julie was surrounded by nuns every day.
“I was the one who went to the cafeteria and brought them milk, so I got to go in the covenant next door. I looked in the rooms. I saw all their habits. I saw the crucifix. I thought, ‘This is kind of cool. I could do this.’”
But once in high school, the intrigue of living a strict nun’s life wore off.
“I found boys.”
Julie also found that public school was a lot different than the private school culture of which she was accustomed.
“At Parkway, it was like a free-for-all . . . . My eyes were widened. Oh my gosh. (Students) weren’t raising their hands. They were just talking out in class. They were smoking in the bathroom. I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ It was a whole new world. It was crazy.”
With the idea of being a nun a thing of the past, Julie found a new career path in the most interesting way.
“I just started looking at people’s teeth and mouth. I wore braces. I thought, ‘This is kind of cool. Maybe I will go into this.”
And she did, becoming a student in the dental hygiene program at Northeast Louisiana University (now the University of Louisiana-Monroe). But needing just 30 hours to graduate, Julie ran into a problem braces couldn’t fix.
“There was a teacher – I guess it was payback (for my mischievousness) – who didn’t like me. She said she would never pass me. At that time, you didn’t say, ‘I’m going to write a letter’. That was unheard of.’
So, Julie took a hike. Albeit a short hike.
“I just walked across the street and fell in love with the auditorium. I got into lighting and doing plays. They needed someone to fix some lighting. With my background with my dad, I said, ‘I can do this.’”
Julie’s father had owned a television shop. One of three children (an older brother and sister), she would go there after school and learn how to “wire things with coaxial cables.”
Julie graduated with a liberal arts degree, got married, and a year later, returned to Northeast and earned her master’s in communications, with an emphasis on theatre. But it was her friendship with a college teacher – Julie enrolled in the teacher’s 6:30 am English class, realized that was too early, and dropped it – that pointed her toward teaching.
“I would come to her office, and we would chit-chat. She was so neat, and neat with the kids. She made you think.”
Spending four decades in the classroom, Julie has seen a lot. She flashed a smile when thinking about her students who went on to enjoy successful careers using the skills they have been taught. Julie also cried when thinking about what she calls “troubled students.”
“I had this one kid. He came to school. I thanked him for coming. He looked disheveled. He didn’t dress that great. We didn’t have a dress code. He didn’t have a place to shower. I said, ‘I’m glad you’re here.’ Another teacher down the hall asked me, ‘How can you teach him?’ I didn’t want to be that teacher. Come to find out, (Julie’s words are hard for me to understand through her broken voice) he was sleeping under the Jimmie Davis Bridge.”
While Julie has appreciated the attentiveness of students who sit near the front of the classroom, her heart goes out to those who insist on sitting in the back of the room. Often times, they are there for a reason.
“I was teaching speech class. We were going to talk about Helter Skelter. We were watching the documentary. This one kid comes up. I asked him, ‘What’s the matter?’ I take him outside. We was crying. ‘What’s the matter?’ He said, ‘My mom is Susan Atkins.’
Atkins was a follower of cult leader Charles Manson and sentenced to prison for killing actress Sharon Tate.
“I was like, ‘Ok, you don’t have to watch this.’ He had long hair. I looked him up in the files. He would go to California every summer to see him mom.”
Atkins died in prison in 2009.
While some wonder what they will do in retirement, Julie – 66 years old and widowed – isn’t one of them. Just like coming up with a lesson plan, she has already accounted for her leisure time.
“I’m going to wake up at nine o’clock. Have my cup of coffee. Go outside. Sit under my pergola until 10. Go to one of the theatres that I need to clean up and fix the lighting. I will bring my dog, Allie. She’s an Australian Shepherd.”
Far from the retired life myself, I decided to ask my final question. As always, what has Julie learned in her life that she would like others to know?
“This too shall pass. We make things a bigger problem than they really are. In other words, go forward. Don’t dwell on something because it will pass. Don’t dwell on the negative, or the bad things. You’re not the only person that might have happened to. Pull up your britches. Get out of the gutter. This too shall pass . . . . Nothing is here to stay. Everything changes.”
And to be on the safe side, don’t throw straight pins at a passing nun.
Do you know someone with a story? Email SBJTonyT@gmail.com.
The Journal’s weekly “What’s Your Story?” series is sponsored by Morris & Dewett Injury Lawyers.