Fouke historic house receives $50,000

A former Miller County woman has made a contribution to Citizens for A Better Community Inc. as a memorial to her educator parents.

Mary Elizabeth Huff Haile, who grew up in Fouke and now lives in Urbana, Ill., donated $50,000 to the charity in honor of her parents, the late Lawrence and Vera Paulk Huff, said Ann Fowler, an executive director of the organization.

The organization is renovating the historical Scoggins House in Fouke to be used as a library and an educational and social-events center.

“Ms. Haile has requested the memorial gift be used to implement the education center and carry on a family tradition,” Fowler said. “Her parents came from families who were prominent educators who valued education and were driving forces for improvement in the educational process in the Fouke community.”

Haile’s parents taught for parts of five decades, Fowler said.

“Anyone who attended the Fouke schools in the 1930s through the 1970s could scarcely have missed being taught by one or more members of these two families,” she said.

Lawrence Huff ’s mother, Marion Huff, and his sisterin-law, Jewell Huff, also were teachers.

Fowler was a student of Vera Huff in the fifth and sixth grades.

“She was a kind, caring teacher who never raised her voice but was very firm with discipline. She made learning competitive and fun. She took her classes on walking field trips for science to collect leaves and identify them,” Fowler said.

“She loved softball and would organize games for the class. One day we were in the middle of a game when one of the students was rounding third and she called to the boy on third base to tag him. With excitement he shouted, ‘I tug him, Mrs. Vera, I tug him.’ She laughed and laughed. I’m sure she thought, ‘I’ve really got to teach another language lesson.’”