The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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May 20, 2008

Mike Pound: School district becomes a place to call home

By Mike Pound

Globe columnist

mpound@joplinglobe.com

When Phyllis Sprenkle first walked into the halls of the Sheldon School District on Sept. 5, 1955, she entered as a young, eager first-grader. In a little more than a month, she will officially walk out of the halls for the last time.

Phyllis, who for the past 12 years has served as superintendent of the school district, will retire June 30 after spending 37 years working for the district as a teacher and administrator. All told, when you factor in her 12 years as a student, Phyllis has spent 49 years of her life roaming the halls and the classrooms of Sheldon schools.

Of course, those halls and classrooms have changed just a little bit. The white, World War II-era barracks building that housed Phyllis’ first-grade classroom is long gone. The large, brick building that used to house the elementary school and the high school serves mainly as a storage building. The elementary school — built in 1956 — is still around, as is the high-school addition that was completed in 1991.

On Tuesday morning, I sat in the principal’s office at Sheldon High School and chatted with Phyllis. I asked her if she could look out the window and still picture that little girl, all those years ago, walking into school for the first time.

“I think so,” Phyllis replied. “But the school has changed so much since that day.”

As much as Phyllis loves the Sheldon School District, she isn’t one to dwell on the past. Talk to her about the district and she will excitedly talk about how things have changed over the years.

She’ll talk about the preschool that the district opened long before most districts in the state were doing so. She will tell you that the Sheldon district was one of the first in the state to require its high-school seniors to take a class in personal finances. She will talk about the computer labs, the Smart Boards in every classroom and the after-school programs offered by the district. She will talk about other teachers and administrators who have made the district what it is today. And she will talk about the sense of family that has always been a part of the school district and that also has made it what it is today.

Phyllis didn’t really intend to spend her adult life in Sheldon. She’s glad she did, but it wasn’t something she planned. After Phyllis and her husband, Paul, graduated from Missouri State University (then known as Southwest Missouri State University), they moved back to Sheldon for the summer. Paul had been accepted into graduate school at the University of Iowa, and he, Phyllis and their young son were planning to head north. Shortly before they were to leave, the Sheldon High School home-economics teacher resigned. Phyllis and Paul did the math. He didn’t have a job. She didn’t have a job. They had a young son. So, Paul attended graduate school at Pittsburg State University, and Phyllis taught home economics, seventh-grade science and library science. She also was the senior class adviser, yearbook adviser and student newspaper adviser.

“I have no idea why I came back the second year,” Phyllis said with a laugh.

Actually, she does know why she came back. She came back for the same reason she came back every year. For the same reason Paul, who has been teaching in the district for 35 years, comes back every year. For the same reason her dear friend Eileen Leininger, who has taught in the district for 36 years, comes back.

Sheldon is their home, and the students who make their way through the same halls they have patrolled all these years are their family. In a few weeks, Phyllis will walk out the school that has been her home for 49 years for the last time — at least as an employee. She says she hopes to be back to visit often, but things will be different. She knows that.

I asked Phyllis what she will do in mid-August when the new school year begins without her. She paused for a second and thought about that.

“Oh, it’s going to be very hard,” she said softly.

I asked Phyllis if I almost made her cry.

She said I did.

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