| Wednesday, January 17
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Scholarship honors Fagan, former Green Creek teacher |
The Nell Fagan Scholarship to be awarded by the Green Creek Community Center honors a former Green Creek Elementary School teacher who taught generations of area young people.
The community center recently announced the creation of the new scholarship designed specifically for students with ties to Green Creek. Officials and residents say it’s fitting to name the scholarship after the community’s long time educator.
When Nell Blackwell joined the faculty of Green Creek School in 1943, she moved into the teacherage there. Because of World War II, there was a shortage of teachers.
Commuting to work as we know it today was impossible because many things were rationed during the war, including gasoline, tires, coffee, tea and sugar. Many teachers in Polk County lived in teacherages. (These were state-owned homes built on school property that operated somewhat like boarding houses.) The Green Creek School teacherage was located just left of the spot where the Green Creek Ruritan Club building is now.
Two years after Nell came, her best friend, Willyene Wright, joined the faculty at Green Creek High School and also lived in the teacherage there. Nell and Willyene had been best friends since they entered first grade together at Campobello School.
This special friendship continued throughout their elementary and high school years at Campobello High, and for four years, these two best friends were roommates at Asheville College. After graduating, they taught at Green Creek and Tryon schools until they retired during the 1980s.
Both Nell and Willyene married Green Creek natives. After Nell married Huey Fagan in 1946, their first home was in the teacherage (downstairs in the rooms that Gertrude and Tracy Gaines had occupied earlier). Their son, James Huey, was born in 1950, and now lives in Boiling Springs.
Willyene says she fondly remembers their "good times together" and she still cherishes the pincushion that Nell gave to her when she was a child. She also tells of their second grade teacher who gave them little dolls, and how much they had enjoyed playing with those dolls. (During those Depression years, children seldom received dolls.) Nell and Willyene remained close friends until Nell‘s death in August 2000.
Nell‘s sister, Maggie Blackwell Allen, had been a teacher at Green Creek High School for years before Nell or Willyene moved to the teacherage. Maggie was an excellent teacher, and was well known for her musical talent. Every Friday morning, the entire student body gathered in the large auditorium, and for years, Maggie taught students to learn to appreciate and enjoy a wide variety of music.
Marvin Wagner, principal of Green Creek Elementary School for 16 years, says, "Nell was a guiding light for me when I came to Green Creek School as a beginning principal in 1970. As I was fresh out of graduate school, she quickly became my friend, my confidante, my mentor and my inspiration during our years of working together. I was fortunate to inherit an outstanding faculty, and I soon realized that Nell was a great inspiration to everyone, students, parents, faculty, and staff. When she retired, along with Edna Michaels, I felt that I had lost my right arm."
Wagner also praises Nell Fagan for the positive effect that she had on hundreds of students, and says that she was a true professional who cared greatly for her students. "I was so happy that my own two children experienced a year with her," he added.
Green Creek community is indebted to Nell Fagan, and to her sister, Maggie Allen, for bringing Nell to Polk County in 1943. As Marvin Wagner stated, "Her church, her family and her students were her greatest priorities."
What a fitting tribute to a dedicated teacher. |
posted by ^%&^
@ 9:59 PM
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