The Times from Shreveport, Louisiana • Page 61

TOIS WEEF ii Werner Park principal to hang up his ruler Town's froggy origins recalled Rodessa now three miles from original site. By VICTOR PIZZOLATO JR. This Week 7 yf i Lloyd J. Parker has been principal for 18 years. By HARRY THOMAS This Week miss him." In 1958, Parker, a native of New Orleans, began his teaching career at Cullen Elementary School in Webster Parish.

He was drafted into the U.S. Army one year after he started teaching. After a two-year stint in the military, Parker ODESSA Probably nothing means as rHEN LLOYD J. Park ana much to a Rodessan as Lthe Frog Level monu- er retires after d4 ment located on Highway 1 years as teacher and TT a few yards north of just principal, he plans to returned to Cullen and worked there for six years. In 1966, he landed his first teaching job in Caddo Parish at Greenmoor El-ementary School, where he spent two Parker make traveling his favorite pastime.

And he will not be spending his time traveling alone. Parker, who is retiring after 18 years as principal at Werner Park Elementary School, will have his wife along for their domestic and foreign traveling adventures. Marilyn Parker is also retiring from her job as a placement facilitator in special education for Caddo Parish schools. The Parkers plan to visit their children and grandchildren. "I've had 18 excellent years here at Werner Park," said Parker, 58.

"I'm going to miss it. I've tried to give a helping hand." Jennifer W. Harris, a speech and language specialist at the school, said Parker's leadership will definitely be missed. "He's a great administrator and a very compassionate person," said Harris. "He's always involved with students, teachers and everybody here.

We will years. He served seven years as a teacher at Midway Junior High School. Before coming to Werner Park in 1976, Parker served one year as principal of Fairfield Elementary School. "I've always tried to be sensitive to the needs of students, parents and teachers," said Parker. He has proud memories of the role parents and teachers played in raising $35,000 to install air-conditioning units in the school.

"Everything worked out fine," said Parker. "Our teachers helped to motivate the parents. That was a good project." i i 1 I. Stoner Hill residents work on improvements Highway 168. Why is the monument, which is essentially two brick columns with a frog sitting atop each the word "Alabama" under one and "Georgia" under the other and the sign between them so important to the Rodessa communi- ty? Because it signifies the founding of the north Caddo Parish community in 1879 when settlers came from Alabama and Georgia, originally calling it Frog Level.

"Nobody could sleep because the frogs were hollering," said Dee Skaggs of the original community about three miles east of the marker. The loud frogs gave the town its name. Skaggs, who has been a resident of Rodessa off and on since 1936, said the monument is the biggest attraction in town, and he is proud of it, as is everybody else in town. "I think it is because the people of Frog Level, who had come from Alabama and Georgia, had enough nerve or gumption to move with progress," said the 65-year-old retired schoolteacher and principal. Frog Level was renamed Rodessa in 1898 after Kansas City Southern built a railroad through the community.

With the arrival of the railroad, the community moved about three miles west of its original location. "The first conductor ever to come through had a daughter named Rodessa," said Skaggs. "It was such a big event for the train to come through. "They all got together and said, 'Since we've moved to here from Frog Level, we're going to name it The monument to the original community was the brain child of Skaggs' father-in-law, Noah Tyson IV, a former police juror and lay preacher who owned a water well service. Noah Tyson IV, for whom the Noah Tyson Memorial Park is named, was the great-grandson of Noah Tyson a store owner, postmaster and police juror who was also one of the founders of Frog Level.

"They made fun of him for doing it, but he was one of those kind of people who was different," Skaggs said. When the monument was Group of residents involved in several projects. By HARRY THOMAS This Week ANY YEARS have passed since some resi BUB dents in Stoner Hill I have worked to improve This Week photoLLOYD STILLEY Dee Skaggs stands before the historical was originally named Frog Level because of marker which tells of the time when Rodessa the myriad amphibians in the area. "We want constructive things for this community. We feel if we want something done, we must do it ourselves," said Sykes.

"We have gotten nothing but promises out here." Shreveport City Council member Keith Hightower, who represents the area, said he is proud of the work the group is doing to improve the quality of life for citizens in the neighborhood. "I support them. They are doing positive things for the community," said Hightower. Currently, the group is involved in several projects in the area. They have adopted the E.B.

Williams Stoner Hill Elementary Lab School and spent about $1,000 to provide school supplies and help sponsor field day and other activities. And thanks to the group's efforts, the community will be getting a Head Start program in the area. Later this year, the Caddo Community Action Head Start Program will open a center in the 1500 block of Easy Street. Thomas Walker, a group member, donated land for the new the quality of life in their small southeast community. But the Stoner Hill Neighborhood Action Group is recharging.

Because they felt their community was being neglected by City Hall, residents said they are getting involved to direct the future course of their neighborhood. "We feel we are doing the work that our elected officials should be doing," said Bessie Smith, who heads the group. "We're helping people. We love and care about our neighborhood." Group member Frank Sykes said residents are following in the footsteps of former neighborhood community leaders such as the late Rev. E.C.

Galloway and Willis Williams. Mayor Barbara Hall, 51. "We thought someone had stolen it." The Caddo Parish Parks Department had taken it down. "We just put the new sign up," said Larry Raymond, director of Parks and Recreation. Raymond said the original sign was wood and had hand-painted letters, while the new one is aluminum with computer-generated, baked-on letters.

The punctuation errors have been corrected as well. The frog statues are due for a face lift, too. "At some point we're going out to paint the frogs," Raymond said. "The last time they were painted was a couple of years ago." Skaggs said he painted one of the frogs about 10 years ago and thought they probably need to be touched up now. "This one's eyes need painting real bad," he said, pointing to the Georgia frog, which had also disappeared a few years ago.

"We found out somebody was repainting it. The other one looks pretty good." dedicated, Tyson was dying from cancer and had to be brought to the ceremony by ambulance. "He was so proud," Skaggs said of his father-in-law, who died in 1977, about a year after the monument was dedicated as Caddo Parish's final bicentennial event. The monument has caused some tense moments for the people of Rodessa, such as the time about a month ago when the sign disappeared. "It was down, and I went looking for it," said Rodessa Next door West I) Shreveport flWf ER nurse is a friend to hospital patients 1 "4 Dm YOU KNOW? By the mid-1 890s, Shreve-porfs population was close to 16,000.

Among the city's amenities along vM the waterworks and sewage system, professional fire and police departments, and electric streetcars were telephones, electric fights and a public high school. Handsome public buildings, heated with steam and lighted by gas and etectricity, gave the city a more mature appearance. On the corner of Texas and Marshall streets stood the imposing federal post office and customhouse. Across from it was the parteh courthouse, Source: Shmveport, A Photo-graphic Remembrance, by Thomson and Meador By HARRY THOMAS This Week HE IS affectionately known by co-workers land children as nurse "Granny." But Juana 7, "We've raised a family. When I got the opportunity to go back to school, I did it." McCann attended the Northwestern University School of Nursing and Shreveport Vocational-Technical Institute.

She attributes her desire to help people to her late mother, Elsie Bowlin. "My mother was a caring person. She taught us to share and to care for others," said McCann. McCann loves growing flowers around her home, photography and pets. Her three daughters live in the area.

They are: Kathey Ebey, 40, of Shreveport; Paula Pitman, 38, of Shreveport; and Elaine Jerome, 33, of Haughton. And she is a grandmother. She enjoys spending time with her five grandchildren. identify with." Audrey Henderson, a supervisor in the emergency area where McCann has worked for seven years, said McCann is especially kind to patients who have few family members. "She is a very caring person," said Henderson.

"She takes flower arrangements up on the floors. We even have patients call back to talk to her after they go home." McCann, who has been a nurse for 14 years, said her lifelong dream was to become a nurse. She said it started when she cared for wounded animals as a girl on the family farm in Tenaha, Texas. But her plans to become a nurse were put on hold after she married James McCann and they raised three daughters. "I got married right out of high school," said McCann.

McCann, an emergency room nurse at Highland Hospital, doesn't mind. She feels the name goes along with her work, as sensitive caregiver to the patients at the hospital. McCann, 60, brings flowers to patients and the elderly residents in her Sunset Acres neighborhood. She's also been known to surprise young and old patients with a special treat. "I try to make trying times easier for my patients," she said.

"There's an emotional side of this job, and I try to talk to people. I want to be somebody that people can This Week ia published each Wednesday and covers news In Caddo Parish, including me communities of Bianchard, Ida, Mootlngsport Shreveport, Vivian and Oil City. Story and photo Ideas may be submitted to Editor Marcia Robertson Sweet This Week, P.O. Box 30222, Shreveport, -U. 71 130-0222, or by calling 463-3218 or 1-600-462-6438.

This Week photoLLOYD STILLEY Juana McCann cuts a few flowers from her yard to deliver to patients at Highland Hospital, where she works..