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Demetra and Ed Perkins at a Rotary Conference in New
Hampshire near her retirement.
In 34 years of teaching elementary school, one thing
that never changed in Demetra Perkins' classroom was the
introduction of a very important member of the class -
Betsy. Each year, Betsy was there to teach the children an
important truth about diversity; that one can function
well despite obvious differences.
"Betsy is my polio souvenir," says Demetra, who was three
years old when she contracted the disease that settled in
her left arm, leaving it permanently paralyzed. "I named
it because people always referred to it as 'your little
arm', 'your little paralyzed arm' or 'your crippled arm',
so I just decided on Betsy."
"I would always explain everything I could about Betsy to
my class," she continues, "I would tell them, 'I don't
always do things exactly like you do, but I do it.'"
Not only did she describe to the children how she does
routine tasks with one hand, like tying her shoes or
painting her nails, she gave them the opportunity to try
it themselves, helping them learn to tie their own shoes
with one hand.
After thoroughly teaching her students about Betsy on the
first day of class, she gave them free reign throughout
the rest of the year to ask any questions that came to
their minds. "They treated Betsy almost like another
student," smiles Demetra, recalling, "It was so cute, one
little boy raised his hand, and I thought he was going to
ask a question about social studies, and he said, 'Now I
forgot, did you say Betsy has feeling in it or not?"
"Yes, she has feeling," she responded before returning to
the lesson.
Born in Gibson County as the youngest child in a family
with two older brothers, Demetra admits, "I'm the spoiled
baby."
She doted on her father, and was following him out to the
barn one day when she climbed to the top of a big white
fence and fell, breaking her arm. She was still recovering
from the mishap when she fell ill with polio during a time
the disease was striking children in the area in epidemic
proportions.
"I remember certain things about it," she offers, "I
remember the night all this team of doctors in white coats
took me out of my mother's arms and laid me on a table."
That evening was the beginning of a year spent in Memphis
in a ward of recovering children of various ages and
levels of disability. At first paralyzed from her neck
down, Demetra recalls treatments including being pinned or
wrapped in pieces of hot wool cloths or blankets.
Eventually, the paralysis left all except her recovering
left arm.
She also remembers the gentle kindness of a grey-haired
nurse who would put the children on a gurney and roll them
down the hall for fun before bedtime.
"That was our treat if we took all our medicine," recalls
Demetra, still counting her blessings. "I was so lucky the
way I came out of it," she nods, almost apologetically,
recounting the disabilities other children endured. "I
only ended up with a paralyzed arm. So many boys - who
would have loved to play football - ended up on crutches
or in wheelchairs, so I have always considered myself
extremely lucky."
The year was punctuated by visits from Demetra's mother,
who would stay a few days, or the whole family some
weekends. "But she had a husband and two little boys at
home," Demetra says sadly, focusing on the pain her mother
endured during the separation. It was when she became a
mother herself, she shares, that she realized "how hard
that must have been, seeing me paralyzed and all. That had
to be hard."
Once she returned home, Demetra and her mother made trips
back to Memphis for treatments over several months. As
time went by, having one functional arm became second
nature until eventually she was left with only one memory
of using two hands.
"To me it's no big deal," she declares, "I do remember
doing one thing with two hands. I remember going out and
snapping my fingers with both hands at the same time and
saying, 'Look Mom, what I can do.'"
She blossomed in the farm community from which she
journeyed to school and to the Cumberland Presbyterian
Church, nurturing throughout the years her dream to become
a teacher.
"I really liked growing up on a farm, I wouldn't take
anything for it," she says strongly, recalling the freedom
of the rural community where she and her girlfriends could
walk to each other's houses to "play house and dolls and
ante over and things that, of course, kids know nothing
about now."
Never discouraged by her seeming disability, Demetra
played basketball throughout her junior high school years,
then thought twice when she fell one day in practice as a
high school freshman. "I thought I had broken my other arm
and decided I'd better be the manager instead," she
laughs.
After graduating from high school, her faith led her to
Cumberland Presbyterian affiliated Bethel College in
McKenzie, where she quickly blended into the academic and
social culture of the small-town college.
In later years, she wrote a poem for an alumni luncheon
that gives the reader humorous and touching insight into
college life in those days.
Demetra was voted "Best Personality" and "Miss
Bethel" by her college peers in 1960. |
Beginning with, "It was back in '56 when our class hit
Bethel College; Some came for fun, some came on the run,
and a few came seeking knowledge," through, "As I
reminisce of our college days, I have to fight the tears;
When I think of all the good memories we had during those
four fun-filled years," and with years of memories in
between, the poem packs an emotional wallop while
revealing the character of Demetra, leaving no room for
doubt as to why her classmates voted her as "Miss Bethel"
and "Best Personality" in the "Who's Who" of Bethel
students in 1960.
"It wasn't a beauty contest," stresses Demetra, apparently
unaware that while the titles recognized her inner beauty,
the accompanying photographs reveal undeniable outer
beauty as well.
Demetra turned the head of Ed Perkins a Bethel student
from Austin, Texas who she married in 1961, the year after
she graduated. "At Bethel, we were like a big family,
meeting each other was no big deal, it was easy to do,"
she says of their early days as friends.
Demetra's first year of teaching took place at Cannon
School, which was located on the Gordon Browning Highway
on the other side of Huntingdon. Demetra taught third and
fourth grades at the school she recalls as "a real modern,
nice little school with eight grades and four teachers."
"I loved that year," she says in a voice thick with
sincerity, "They were precious children; it was a good
send off for me for my first year of teaching."
After their marriage, Ed and Demetra moved to Paris where
she took a job at Atkins Porter School while he worked for
WHDM radio in McKenzie. Talking of the school which has
now been torn down, Demetra says, "I almost get teary eyed
with memories."
While teaching third grade in Paris during the next four
years, Ed and Demetra enrolled at Murray State University
from which they both earned masters degrees in 1963: his
in psychology and hers in education.
The following year, the family moved back to McKenzie and
Demetra began teaching third grade at McKenzie Elementary
School.
"I helped set up the remedial reading program in McKenzie
in the late 1960's (around 1967) then got pregnant with
Dee Ann and stayed out for six years," says Demetra,
anxious to minimize each role in which she played an
important part.
While tending to gloss over her own accomplishments,
however, Demetra overflows at every opportunity with love
for both her family and for the children she helped raise
over a lifetime of teaching.
"Probably the happiest, most exciting thing that ever
happened to Ed and me was the day Dee Ann was born," she
says with enduring fondness of the memory stretched over
the 34 years since her daughter was born.
The happy memory sparks remembrance of another special
time in the late 1960's when Demetra and Virginia Sue
Morrow became the first two women elders ever appointed in
McKenzie's Cumberland Presbyterian Church. "That was very
humbling, to be put with her in that position, she was
such a nice lady," Demetra shares, relating that Mrs.
Morrow's husband had been a Bible professor at Bethel
College.
Both Ed and Demetra also continued their educations,
attending doctoral classes at the University of Kentucky
over two summers after which Ed obtained a doctorate in
psychology.
While staying home with Dee Ann, Demetra also taught
methods classes through Bethel College's education
department.
"I loved that; it was fun because a lot of the students I
had were teachers and knew what they wanted and needed. I
really enjoyed teaching the college age," she says.
In her first year back in the McKenzie School system after
Dee Ann was old enough to attend school herself, Demetra
taught study skills to junior high school students,
teaching a different group each six weeks. "So many kids
don't know how to study," she laments.
The following year she began teaching fifth graders at
McKenzie Elementary School, beginning an exciting time in
her career when she assumed a major role in helping found
the annual fifth-grade play along with fellow teachers
Emily Archer, Ann Conquest and Pam Seymour, sometime
around 1976.
"It really turned into a big production," says Demetra
enthusiastically. After operating "at rock bottom" for
several years using record players and borrowed costumes,
the play attracted the assistance of music teacher
Charlene Jones and volunteer Glynn Mebane, who became the
play's sound manager.
The exciting element of the play for Demetra was not only
the fun the children had in performing but the learning
that took place as, each year, the players acted out the
history of the United States from Columbus and the
Pilgrims to modern times, singing and dancing in addition
to performing interactive parts with all the children in
costume.
"They were really productive, educational plays; they were
learning while they were rehearsing," Demetra relates,
recalling another year when five teachers joined to write
a play portraying the history of Tennessee, embellished
throughout with Tennessee's music.
"I still have students tell me things they remember about
the plays," Demetra smiles, telling how high school
seniors show up with the tapes on senior night to share
the fun of their younger years with their fellow students.
The play was unfortunately discontinued when the fifth
grade moved to the middle school seven or eight years ago,
due to changes in the schedule, leaving Demetra to use
other ways to keep her students interested in learning.
"I always tried to make learning fun," she says, "We
played Hollywood Squares and other television games
adapted to the classroom and the academic work I was
teaching; Password always seemed to be the favorite."
Once more hesitant, Demetra acknowledges she was selected
teacher of the year by her peers twice during her career,
once during the mid 1990's while still teaching at the
elementary school and again before her retirement at the
middle school in 2000.
"I'm not bragging but I'm proud of it," she shares, "I
taught school for 34 years and I loved it. Even from a
little girl, I wanted to teach - I loved children - and if
you're going to teach you need to love children."
Demetra sums up her philosophy of education in three
elements: "Love your students and care for them," she
says. "And teach them how to read and teach them how to
study. That makes them independent learners and I think
this is two of the best things you can do for them."
She still keeps up with her students as best she can,
reading about them in the newspaper, seeing them at
church, and watching them play ball. "Once you spend a
school year teaching a child, I always feel they're a
little bit mine - and I really feel that way," she states
sincerely. "If I had my life to relive, I'd be a teacher
again, and I'd want to teach the same children I had the
privilege of teaching."
While missing teaching as well as her fellow teachers,
Demetra admits, "As of right this moment, I'm really happy
and content. I'm at that age to eat lunch out and play
golf, go shopping and have some days that I can do other
work."
"Other work" for Demetra has been helping start new
teachers on the paths of their careers, observing and
evaluating student teachers for Union University.
"I'm enjoying doing that, I really enjoy it because I feel
indirectly that I am hopefully still helping students,"
she says. "I'm enjoying working with Union and I'm
enjoying everything I'm doing right now."
"Everything else" has been doing some traveling, in 2000
heading to Augusta, Georgia for the Masters Golf
Tournament, a trip that was a gift from her husband who is
well aware of her passion for golfing.
"Walking around the course with Tiger and the big boys -
that was fun," Demetra says, relating her near encounter
with Tiger Woods, who was teeing off on number seven while
she and Dee Ann were on the green.
"They sounded the horn for rain and he walked over and
picked up his ball and left the course," she says,
nevertheless excitedly.
"I love to play golf," she declares, "I wouldn't call me a
golfer, though, that's using the term too loosely."
She credits long time friend Virginia Claire Edwards with
her initial instruction in the game, a story best told by
Virginia Claire, who relates, "She said, 'I want to learn
to play golf,' and I said, 'You can't play golf!' She
said, 'Would you go with me and just show me the course
and teach me the basics?'"
Virginia Claire pauses for effect and then says, with a
toss of her hand, "She beat me and I never played golf
again."
"It was just like basketball and all was to me," Demetra
explains, smiling. "I just work out my method; I put Betsy
behind me and just line up and hit it with one instead of
two."
Demetra also enjoys spending time with her family that has
grown to include Dee Ann's husband Andy Culbreath and
12-year-old son Nick of Jackson, plus new grandbaby
Madison Drew, who at 15 months old is one of Demetra's
greatest delights.
She also enjoys just going to town. "It's so much fun to
go out; the kids holler at you and that's so rewarding.
Teaching is one of the most rewarding professions there
is. Teaching was just fun, it was just fun."
Bethel Memories
By Demetra Perkins
It was back in '56 when our class hit Bethel College,
Some came for fun, some came on the run, and a few came
seeking knowledge.
We gathered here from all directions, north, south, east,
and west,
Among us were many McKenzians who had considered Bethel
College best.
We came to Bethel wearing "can-can" slips and dancing to
Elvis' rock-n-roll,
Insecure, scared green freshmen we were, each searching
for his own goal.
As we tirelessly unpacked our wares from the back of each
car trunk,
Mrs. Luter greeted us gently with, "Your room won't hold
all that junk."
We took our stuff into the dorms, began to unpack and look
around,
It didn't take long to view the campus and see the sights
of town.
Laughlin Home and Laughlin Hall did creak, as we all got
settled in,
With roommates whom we came to love and live with as a
friend.
Doubts and loneliness crept into our minds for that first
day or two,
As we wandered aimlessly around campus and wondered just
what to do.
Action picked up and spirit did too, with freshman
initiation,
Parties, snake dances, egg rollings and dates increased
our college appreciation.
James Hudson, the bursar, was quite friendly, and seemed
to think it funny,
As we went through the registration line and he took all
our money.
Dr. Roy Baker and Dean Burroughs were the two gentlemen
who were in command.
They gave good advice, counseled us, and would often have
to reprimand.
Cain Taylor and W.A. Smith tried to teach us history.
When grade cards came out it was evident to many that it
remained a mystery.
Miss Dorothy Parnell taught us Bible, and was an angel in
disguise,
There is no way to measure the good she did for numerous
girls and guys.
Mrs. Mary Holmes, Dr. Ireland, and Mr. John May too,
Taught subject matter daily and each shared an important
value.
Miss Margaret Schwam was our P.E. instructor and we did as
she told,
But some of us never got the hang of dancing around that
May pole.
The weeks and months quickly passed and we students became
weaned from home.
In fact, most parents considered themselves lucky if they
heard from their offspring by phone.
When we'd finished a class or just needed relaxation and
fun,
We'd head for the bookstore and grill, which Mrs. Madge
May did run.
We'd go in and eat a snack or would you believe just have
a plain coke?
That is, the ones who had money, not the ones of who were
broke.
We'd chat and flirt with our friends and maybe play a game
of ping pong,
While others would play the juke box and sing or dance to
their favorite song.
The music department was located upstairs just above the
grill.
It was quite evident downstairs when the music students
had to drill.
The John W. Dishman gymnasium, as you recall, was next
door to the grill.
With only one side of it housing seats it was never very
hard to fill.
The gymnasium was the scene at graduations, beauty reviews
and such;
Whatever you attended there never cost you very much.
As you remember, our dining hall was in the basement of
the girls' dorm;
Whenever meal time would roll around we'd hit that place
like a storm.
Our food back then was served family style, and we'd pass
the bowls around;
Except for a couple of tables, and after the blessing,
there was no food to be found.
Our meals were planned by a dietician and she was a
connoisseur;
Her name was Miss Clara Dishman but we students called her
"Doer".
Most of McKenzie Volunteer Fire Department were classmates
who didn't tire,
But when their pocket change got low, it seemed we always
had a mysterious grass fire.
The McKenzie theatre was the hot spot in town whenever we
wanted to see a flick.
There were two guys in particular who enjoyed the movies,
they were Jimmy John and Chick.
Jommy John loved the movies, in fact, he considered them a
must;
No wonder he enjoyed them so much he got in free with "woofle
dust".
You remember how we used to walk to town, it wasn't very
far;
It wasn't we didn't have money for gas, we didn't have a
car.
Oh, how I remember the night the UT students came and
caused quite a scene;
Then some of our guys graciously reciprocated by painting
their campus green.
We had stacking of rooms, shortsheeting of beds and even
pigs in the boys' dorm;
But it was all just in fun we tried to explain, as the
dorm counselor would scorn.
Pop Johnson, David Argo and Walt kept our campus in good
repair;
Golena Puckett and Roy Pate's love and kindness kept many
students from despair.
We loved that Casey Vinson, and many times watched his
Wildcats fend;
We can almost hear him holler now, "Come on guys, we've
just got to win!"
I'm very glad the Log Cabin can't talk, and I'm glad it
wasn't bugged too;
Because an awful lot of good courting went on there, and a
few met their waterloo.
As I reminisce of our college days, I have to fight the
tears
When I think of all the good memories we had during those
four fun-filled years.
It makes no difference who we are, or what achievements or
degrees we've earned in knowledge;
We'll always cherish the friends we made and the happy
years we spent at Bethel College.
-Demetra Perkins
11-16-85
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