Loblolly has been resurrected
Gary is a small town in Panola County near the county seat of Carthage. The high school in Gary has about 275 students. Back in the 70’s some folk crafts were still being practiced around Gary and a teacher at Gary High School, a man named Lincoln King, thought it would be a good idea to report on bonnet makers, hominy cooks, people who make shoe laces from squirrel hides and other people doing things the old fashioned way.
He and his students began a folklore publication called Loblolly, named for the Loblolly pine tree.
It attracted state and national attention and was published for 30 years until Mr. King retired in 2002.
One of Mr. Kind’s former students from the Loblolly days, Nerissa Coligan, is now an English and journalism teacher at
Gary High School and in 2017 decided to revive Loblolly. The first issue featured an article on Mr. King and some stories from previous Loblolly publications, including one about Bonnie and Clyde, the outlaw couple that had some connections in Panola County. The entire issue with a publication run of 500 sold out.
The second annual publication is about country music. The current issue is about storytellers. Nerissa says the focus has shifted somewhat from folklore to general interest.
“My upper level journalism students put out the Loblolly now. We kind of just choose topics that have interested the kids and that we knew we could find somebody to interview locally.
It’s definitely a team effort.
I come up with some suggestions and the students come up with some. We video the interviews and then transcribe the recorded interview for the magazine.
It’s sort of an oral history publication.
The response has been great. Everyone who gets one is very pleased with it.”
Loblolly is sold in the Gary store and at different events and venues around Carthage. Of course parents buy copies that feature their kids’ articles. The price for the 66-page publication is ten dollars.
“It’s a full color, high gloss magazine. We sell ads to local businesses to cover the cost of printing. We use an online printer and my kids are actually doing the layout, the design, getting it camera ready to send to the printer. So they have really bumped up their publishing skills. They are proud of the work they do and I’m extremely proud of them.”
Lincoln King kept in touch with the students after he retired and when he died last year left a large sum of money to make sure the publication would continue. Nerissa says Mr. King donated an amount large enough to fund an annual scholarship to one or two deserving seniors who worked on Loblolly.
There aren’t many high schools of any size, much less one with fewer than 300 students that would even undertake a publication like this. It’s quite unique.