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THE LONGVIEW VOICE — Founded in 2016
Ned E. Williams showed the power of education A legacy of education and professional excellence for generations Ned Edward Williams was born a slave on September 4, 1864 to Ms. Partha Williams (being a slave, his father was WILLIAMS not known) on a Plantation owned by James W. Williams in Sabine County, Texas. He was reared in rural Shelby County, Texas (near the East Hamilton community), until he was approximately sixteen years old. His mother had three other children; Jake, Della and Ludie. In 1880 the family migrated by wagon train to Kansas for a better life and lived there for about 18 months in the Coffeyville area. Kansas proved to be no better than East Texas, in addition to the weather being rather hostile at the time. The family decided to return to Shelby County. Instead they stopped by a farm owned by Dr. Mitchell in rural Gregg County, near the Elderville community. They worked on the farm for a while and decided to stay in the area instead of returning to Shelby County. During this time Ned E. Williams kept privately studying books he acquired along the way after he finished his
chores. Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell encouraged him to continue his studies. Since he was selftaught and very studious, he was encouraged by Professor F. A. Glenn to enter the teaching profession. Williams took the examination and passed, despite having never received a formal education. He started his teaching career in 1883 at a small school in community of Fredonia, about 8 miles south of Longview. Ned E. Williams taught in Fredonia until 1889, when he was called home to the community of Greenville (southeast of Longview near the East Texas Regional Airport) to assist in setting up and running a school that would later bear his name. The school oper-
ated in the Elderville School District under the following names: Greenville School, Greenville High School, Gregg County Training School, and finally Ned E. Williams High School. The school continued in operation for over 80 years producing thousands of graduates who have served the community and the nation as teachers, preachers, lawyers, chemists, business leaders, administrators and leaders in the armed forces. Professor Williams was able attend Bishop College in Marshall, and the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama despite not having the benefit of a formal high school education. While at Tuskegee Institute he studied under influential American
thinkers Dr. Booker T. Washington and Dr. George Washington Carver. When he returned to Texas, Williams regularly corresponded with them until they each passed away. Dr. Booker T. Washington died in 1915. Dr. George Washington Carver died in 1943. Dr. Carver made his first visit to Longview in 1915, and again 1927 when he stayed in the home of Professor Ned E. Williams for about a week to visit the school and community. Shortly before Dr. Carver passed, he was scheduled to make another visit to the Williams family and school in Longview. The visit was called off because of scheduling problems during the war (World War II) and his illness. A devout member of the Pleasant Green Baptist Church, Professor Williams served a number of capacities as Deacon, Trustee, Church Clerk, and Sunday School Teacher to name a few. He was also a Mason in the Prince Hall Cuney Lodge. He kept the community informed of various issues affecting them through voter education, counseling, Notary Public. He continued to remind residents to pay their poll taxes and vote so they could effect the outcome of an election. Ned|Continued to page 11
LISD continues to offer the future to students By Dustin Taylor For my freshman year of high school I followed the tradition that my siblings set ahead of me: I switched from Kilgore to Longview. There were several reasons for this, but the biggest reason was that LHS had a lot to offer for students that KHS simply didn’t. From the sheer load of extra-curricular classes to having some of the best teachers in East Texas. For me, like most students, high school had its up and downs, but at the end of the day, as I took a hold of my diploma, I felt as though I was graduating from LHS with great memories and a head full of knowledge. As an introvert, I didn’t put myself out there and experience all of the opportunities that I could have. I only
scratched the surface I will forever be of all the amazing indebted to Chris things that were ofCraddock. Thanks to fered to students. For his kind attitude and me personally, the most encouragement, I found important class that a career choice that I I took during my four truly enjoy and have a years was a class that knack for. I initially took for the Mr. Craddock rep“easy” A: Journalism. resents the reason that TAYLOR my siblings and I went The off-handed choice wound up shapto LHS instead of KHS: ing my future like few other potential. choices ever would. I went to The potential classes, the college to become a journalist, potential to learn from great got a job for a local newspaper, teachers and the potential to then landed my current job put our feet on the right future working for LISD’s Community for ourselves. Relations Department where I With me now working at design this very newspaper. LISD and traveling all over the I am where I am because different campuses due to my I made a random choice for job, I am so proud to see that an extra-curricular class and the very reason that we chose because the teacher, at that LHS has not only continued time, saw something in me as to be a part of LISD but has a writer and encouraged me to grown by leaps-and-bounds. keep at it. The high school, for example,
has so many new teachers that exemplify excellence, as well as some that are still there (Some that I was lucky enough to have been taught by when I was a teen, such as Pam Mercer and Calvin Hanzik). Then there are the new opportunities afforded to the students: From the newer tennis courts (I’m certainly not at all jealous of their nice, new, non-cracked courts. Not at all.) to the ever expanding Ag program, the amazing robotics programs or the ability to graduate with a college degree weeks before even receiving one’s high school diploma. I am so happy to see that LISD has grown so much, offering seemingly endless branches of growth for the students. I am a proud Lobo. — An award-winning journalist and 2007 graduate of LHS, Dustin Taylor is the editor-in-chief of The Longview Voice.
