Story of the schoolboy and the Marietta school bell lives on
If you’d like to hear Marietta ISD’s school bell ring once more, you’ll have to hear a story first.
It’s the story of the student who dismissed the Marietta School an hour early at 2:30 in the afternoon by kicking and ringing the big bell.
This story must be true because it was told by a former student attending the school’s reunion, and he told it on himself. It happened long ago in the 1920s when schools were a little less formal and not so well-run.
Hugh Floyd of Daingerfield said he ran to that task one day after waking up from a day-dream and seeing his teacher, Miss Thelma Russell, looking at him.
“I thought she’d told me to go ring the bell, so I ran out of the room fast, ” Hugh said.
Miss Russell, however, had been seeking an answer to a question. Hugh ran so quickly out the door that she couldn’t stop him, and the whole school got out early when he gave the bell a swift kick and it went, “BO… ONG…ONG!!!”
That’s it. That’s how it sounded.
The punishment Hugh received? Well, it couldn’t have been too bad. After all, the bell had been given to the school by his grandfather David Anderson Floyd who had also given the land for the school and also for the church and cemetery nearby.
Floyd’s tale was a part of an annual school reunion event which used to be held following the 10 a.m. parade on a Saturday in the fall. It would be a day of music, crafts and food, according to Pansy Ham, then city secretary and organizer.
Among the town activities would be contests in arm wrestling, horseshoes, washer toss, Bingo, dominoes and the judging of baked and canned goods. Pony rides, cake walk, drawings and raffles as well as a dunking booth rounded out the planned events.
On this occasion back at the school, a 1 p.m. program started with the invocation and Pledge of Allegiance led by School Superintendent Paulette Suttle.
Two other former superintendents, Joel Sain and Billye Foster, were in the audience.
A former student and now attorney Mike Smith of Texarkana was master of ceremonies. He introduced the special guests and gave a history and slide show of the school and the three buildings which had been occupied since its opening in 1905. Marietta at one time went to grade 10 level but was now K-5.
During the program, a special secret was revealed that there was talk of forming an old-time authentic school band with some of the primitive instruments the former students remember playing.
After the program, classrooms were open for visitation with a number of memory photographs placed on the walls around the school.
Later that evening at 5, a barbecue would be held in the Oak Ridge Baptist Church and the day would conclude.
Hugh Floyd didn’t re-enact his speedy ringing of the school bell. When the reunion program was over at the school this day, everyone got to go home at the correct time. But they still remembered that bell’s unforgettable sound.
It’s likely you, too, while reading this story, have just heard in your mind the ringing of the school bell of your childhood. It, too, went, “BO…ONG…ONG!!!”