E. R. Minchew

Elmer Reid Minchew, usually known as E. R. Minchew (January 26, 1908 – July 1, 2001), was a prominent Louisiana educator whose career spanned the forty-six years from 1929 to 1975.

Background

Minchew was born in rural Taylor in Bienville Parish to Elmer Minchew (1879–1971), a railroad employee, and the former Sallie Reid (1881–1975). Elmer and Sallie Minchew are interred at Mt. Lebanon Cemetery near Gibsland in Bienville Parish.^[1] Minchew graduated from Castor High School in Castor in Bienville Parish, where in 1925, he was the senior class president. In 1929, he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree from Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College in Pineville, where he was president of the junior and senior classes and the state collegiate champion in oratory and debate.^[2]

Minchew subsequently received his Master of Arts and Ph.D. in 1938 and 1955, respectively, from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.^[3] He began his teaching career as assistant principal and coach from 1929 to 1930 at Bienville High School in Bienville, Louisiana, followed by two years in the same capacities at Lisbon High School in Claiborne Parish.

Castor High School

In 1932, Minchew returned to his alma mater, Castor High School, as principal, coach, and debate sponsor, a position that he held until 1964, except for three years of service in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II.^[2][4] Among Minchew's top debate students was DeWitt Talmage Methvin, Jr., a 1940 Castor graduate who later became an attorney in his native Alexandria, Louisiana. Methvin's mother, Myrtis Lucille Gregory Methvin, was the mayor of Castor from 1933 to 1945, one of the first women mayors in Louisiana.^[5][6]

A Methvin grandson describes Castor as "one of the most progressive schools in Bienville Parish. Dr. E. R. Minchew was the principal there from 1932 to 1964, and he was well respected. Castor High School had one of the best debate teams in the state at the time."^[5] Another Castor student during Minchew's tenure as principal was Enoch T. Nix, later a banker from Bossier City and a 30-year member of the Louisiana State Board of Education and its replacement body, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Nix died six months after Minchew's death.^[7]

In 1938, Minchew published a short article entitled "Integrated Teaching in the Secondary School" in the Quarterly Journal of Speech.^[8]

Minchew's educational career was interrupted by three years of service in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II.^[9]

The Castor High School Class of 1958, along with several other class years, is listed on a genealogy website, along with the faculty members at that time.^[10]

During most of Minchew's tenure, Clovis Holley Pullig (1917-2013), was a Castor High School faculty member. She was later a two-term alderman and three-term mayor of the nearby village of Ashland in Natchitoches Parish.^[11]

Louisiana Tech professor

After his tenure in Castor, Minchew became professor and chairman of the speech department at Louisiana Tech University, under president F. Jay Taylor, also a native of Bienville Parish. He remained in that role for eleven years until his final retirement, effective August 31, 1975.^[12]

Minchew was a past president of the Louisiana Teachers Association and attended national conventions^[13] before the organization was desegregated and became the Louisiana Association of Educators. By that time, he had already joined the Louisiana Tech faculty. Minchew was also a past president of Louisiana Retired Teachers Association, president of the Bienville Teacher's Association, and in 1972 the president of the Louisiana Tech Faculty Senate.^[14] Minchew was a worthy grand master of the Masonic lodge and director of education for the Grand Lodge of Louisiana.^[15] Minchew was a deacon at the First Baptist Church in downtown Ruston, the home of Louisiana Tech and the seat of Lincoln Parish.

As a speech professor, Minchew was known to require students to pronounce "Louisiana" as LOU ZHE ANA, the common reference in the northern part of the state, rather than LA WEE ZEE ANA, a pronunciation more common in the south. Either is considered correct. An unidentified student of Minchew's writes: "If the broadcasters in Louisiana had from the beginning of time taken Dr. Minchew's correct pronunciation of the word . . . we wouldn't have the national media saying that the name has too many syllables . . . . I have done commercial production and voice work throughout our state and other states and always use Dr. Minchew's pronunciation---never had it thrown back at me for a re-do."^[16]

After retirement, Minchew continued to speak before civic groups in his state, having made more than a thousand such addresses in his lifetime.^[4]

Family and death

On June 5, 1934, Minchew married the former Gladys Crawford (April 2, 1913 – December 15, 1987), who was an elementary schoolteacher at Castor. The couple had two children, Mary Lynn Hooper (born 1944) and husband Robert Lee Hooper (born 1939), of Mancos in far southwestern Colorado, previously of Lordsburg in southern New Mexico, and Michael Bert Minchew, I (born 1938), and his wife, the former Norma Jean Ellis (born 1939), of Richardson, Texas, formerly of Plano. Mary Hooper was formerly married to Howard Merrill Goodwyn (born 1940) of Arlington, Texas.^[3] Minchew had a sister, Lois M. Perritt (1919–2011), a 1936 graduate of Castor High School, and her husband, Quentin Floyd Perritt (1918–2004) of Jena in La Salle Parish, later from Baton Rouge, a nephew, Ronald Perritt of Baton Rouge,^[17] seven grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.^[18]

Minchew died at his home in Ruston at the age of ninety-three. Services were held on July 3, 2001, at First Baptist Church in Ruston. He is interred beside his wife at Springhill Cemetery in Ringgold in Bienville Parish.^[19]

References