M.D. Shannon tribute lets teachers, students recall happy memories

M. D. Shannon Elementary, back in the days when the property housed Morgan City High, stood up to the Great Flood of 1927. Sixty-five years later, when the school bore the name and performed the mission it has today, people took shelter from Hurricane Andrew in the three-story building’s classic gymnasium-auditorium.

But the St. Mary Parish School Board did what the natural disasters couldn’t. Responding to declining enrollment and declining state aid, the board voted two months ago to close Shannon, along with Hernandez Elementary in Franklin.

So teachers and former teachers, staff members and former staff members, students and parents gathered at the school Saturday to pay tribute to the school and say goodbye. Shannon will end with the 2015-16 school year.

“Very emotional today,” current Principal Shantell Toups said. “You know, positive and negative, I guess.

“Positive to see the outpouring of the community and the alumni here at Shannon. To hear the stories of all the former principals here and the people who have come here to experience Shannon Elementary. And still some disappointment and heartache that we have to do this today because we’re closing the doors of Shannon Elementary.”

Calvin Bourgeois was there when Shannon’s doors opened for the first time, as an elementary school at least. Bourgeois, now 92, was the first principal and served from 1958 to 1960. He said he was trained in music and probably shouldn’t have been named principal.

But when he got the job, he set about improving science education, especially for third- and fourth-graders who didn’t have science textbooks. Bourgeois created a second section of science to take advantage of a teacher with a master’s degree.

Bourgeois said he brought the New Orleans Symphony to the same gym where Saturday’s tribute was held. Another chance to bring performers to town didn’t work out so well. He said the school had the opportunity to host the Von Trapp Family.

“I thought they were a hillbilly bunch,” Bourgeois said. He passed on the chance.

The Von Trapps were mountain folk, but the mountains were in Austria. They were the family about which the movie “The Sound of Music” would be made.

Another former principal, Monica Mancuso, said she thought her first two years, 1991 and 1992, were wrapped up pretty well.

“Then came August of 1992,” Mancuso said.

That meant Hurricane Andrew, which made landfall in St. Mary. Mancuso said she recently talked with a woman who took shelter in Shannon’s gym during Andrew. She even managed to sleep during a storm that blew open weaker roofs.

“We can thank the educators who came before us and the taxpayers who came before us for doing such a fine job on this building,” Mancuso said. “But Shannon Elementary – it’s not just a building. It’s the people.”

The principal who followed Mancuso, Rebecca Harris, was caught in the winds of change when standardized tests took on greater significance. “You got the hurricane,” Harris said from the lectern, turning to Mancuso. “I got the high-stakes tests. It was stressful. …

“Everybody pulled together,” Harris said. “We analyzed our data. We worked to see what needed to be improved and what we didn’t have to worry about as much. And that is when I really believe that as a faculty and a staff, we made a true learning community. My teachers didn’t leave. Very few left after that point.”

Later came the news that Shannon’s school grade was improving from C to B. “I almost cried,” Harris said.

“We worked so hard. The staff, the students, the parents, the grandparents. We were coming together as a school family.”

In an interview, longtime cafeteria manager Alicia Robicheaux said she felt the same sense of community. When M.E. Norman Elementary reopened after sending its children to Shannon, then-Principal Anthony Streva asked her to move to Norman.

“I said, ‘No, I’m staying here,’” Robicheaux said. “My staff stayed here. … This school is so sentimental. I’ve always felt a warmth here.”

Toups agreed.

“It’s hard to put into words what it is,” Toups said. “It may be because the school is so small in personnel. It’s just different. But it’s a positive kind of different.”

Her staff has had to cope with the knowledge that the school would close soon.

“They’re strong,” Toups said. “ But after time, it weighs in on them. A lot of heavy hearts this last week. “We’ve had boxes actually delivered to start packing. So that process has made it more of a reality for us. Hearts are heavy, but I commend them because they continue to teach each and every day. You would pass by the classrooms and not know that anything different is going on at Shannon. It’s a regular day. ‘I commend them for that, even though I know their hearts are heavy.”

--Bill Decker

bdecker@daily-review.com