Page 88 - some-stuff-i-wrote-and-some-stuff-i-didn't-(2011)-h-morris-williams

Some Stuff I Wrote (2001) H. Morris Williams

sometimes greeted his friends on the street like this: Come see me down at my barber shop
sometime. But don’t come if you die. I won’t be there. I’ll be at your funeral!

Things You May Not Have Known

October 5,1993

Niblack Learning Center was the first school in this county to have air conditioning in every
classroom and Alfonso Levy was the principal who made it happen.
Melrose Park Elementary School was the first elementary school here to have a school

counselor and that counselor was Fritz Fountain, now pastor at Berea Baptist Church.
Local Businessman and Quarterback Club treasurer, Jack Muenchen, was a high school

football player and his high school coach was Jerry Faust who later coached at Notre Dame.
Bill Canova was one of Columbia High School’s first football coaches and he was a cousin

to Starke’s Judy Canova, who starred in several Hollywood movies in the 1940s.

Kindergarten teacher Diane Perry was the first local president of the Florida Association of
Children Under Six (FACUS) and kindergarten teacher Jane McClelland was the first and only
local teacher ever to be elected statewide president of FACUS.

School board member Jim Arnold once won a “Junior Sample Look-alike Contest”

sponsored by the star of the Hee-Haw TV program.
Former CHS football star Ellis Holiday continued to play football in the military service and,
in 1958, played for the Air Force All-Stars in Tokyo’s Rice Bowl before 80,000 fans - at the time,

the largest crowd ever to see a football game outside the USA.
Aero executive Buford Minter’s daughter was once named the San Antonio, Texas, school

system’s “Teacher of Year”.
The late CHS teacher Ola Lee Means once authored a book of poetry titles, “Heartsease”

and one of her poems was a tribute to students she had taught.
Zell Waites, who coached the CHS girls’ track team to the state Championship in 1929-30

is the mother of Jack Harper, former University of Florida athletic star and now a top executive

-83-

www.LakeCityHistory.com LCH-UUID: CD05D759-5273-4705-A6D7-381FCF749098