Looking at the history of Hamilton’s Ada Hanna School

(This February, the Journal Record will celebrate Black History Month by taking a look back at the Ada Hannah School in Hamilton and the stories that surround it.)

Lee Vera Colburn Terrell
I spent all of my years of education at Ada Hanna. I enjoyed it there. We had plays and parties, a dance group of girls and basketball. I played all through high school. We played on an outside court. At that time all girls didn’t play. But we played in Miss. I graduated and went on in my later years and got a Bachelors from Athens State and later got my RN IJC in Tupelo. I returned from NTN after 28 years there as an industrial nurse.

Alma McFadden-Miller
I was born in Marion County, Alabama, in a family of four: my parents and two brothers. My brothers and I attended Ada Hanna School. We graduated in the fifties. School classes and activities were very important to us. I was sad when I had to miss any activities or a day out of school.
Ada Hanna was the center of social activities for the black community. Some of the activities were school assemblies, ball games, dances, picnics and school plays.
After graduating high school, I enrolled in Alabama A&M College, Huntsville, Alabama. Four years later I earned a degree in elementary education. My first teaching experience was substituting for a teacher on leave in Guin.
In 1960, I accepted an elementary school teaching position in Quitman, Miss. During my tenure there I developed a greater interest and love for teaching. I became a member of the Association of Classroom Teachers South Regional. The states were Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and North and South Carolina. The conference featured workshops of interest to educators and also guest speakers who entertained participants.
The highlight of my career was being chosen an outstanding elementary teacher of America for 1973.
I retired in 1992 to care for ill family members.