Taking the bitter with the sweet: Viewing the beginning (1960) and the end (2024) of Spring Valley Elementary, Part 1 (the “sweet”) 
by Bill Jones

To read Part 2, click here.

How many people have the opportunity to be at a new elementary school when it opens and – 64 years later – be there as it prepares to close its doors for the last time?

Not many, apparently. As alumni gathered on Saturday, May 11, to say a fond farewell to Spring Valley Elementary School in the Richardson, Texas, school district, I searched high and low for anyone else with a name tag showing “1960,” and found nary a one. In fact, I got so desperate for conversation that I once walked up to a group of folks chatting and said, “Sorry, but I can’t find anyone here as old as I am, so I thought I’d come visit with you young folks!” (“young” being anyone under 70)

So I was apparently the only one – of the hundreds of students who helped open the school in 1960 – who returned for the end in 2024. The closest I came to finding one of my old schoolmates was when I met Sam Hockaday. I told him that I had a buddy in my class at Spring Valley named Eddie Hockaday. Turns out that Eddie is Sam’s older brother, who didn’t attend the gathering. So Sam & I took a picture together, and Sam’s going to pass it along to Eddie. We exchanged cell #s, and – if Eddie remembers me – I hope to connect with him soon.

Spring Valley is one of four RISD elementary schools that are closing because of budget constraints. But I’ll address that in Part 2. This post is about the special times I had this month in my return to my old elementary school.

On Friday, May 10, I joined several other members of my church, Wilshire Baptist in Dallas, to cover classes at Spring Valley for about an hour so that teachers and staff could have a leisurely lunch together in the middle of the annual Field Day. For several years now, Wilshire has “adopted” Spring Valley, volunteering whatever help we can give. I took part last August in delivering donated supplies to Spring Valley for the pantry the school has used to provide needed staple products for the community. One of Wilshire’s own, Shana Gaines, has served Spring Valley as assistant principal for the past several years.

Shana assigned me to cover a 4th-grade class. This was serendipitous for me, because I was a 4th-grade student at Spring Valley when the school opened its doors for the first time in the fall of 1960. Thus, I was part of the first group of 4th graders at Spring Valley in 1960 and spent an hour with some of the last group of 4th graders as Spring Valley prepares to close in 2024. God has not only a sense of humor but a great sense of symmetry!

It was an easy gig. The students were well-behaved. My biggest challenge was in managing all of the requests to leave the room – going to the restroom, getting their lunches from their lockers, etc. I decided on one rule – to permit only one student at a time to be out of the room. That seemed to work. Otherwise, as the teacher had assured me, they were pretty independent and self-guided.

As I sat observing the students during that hour, my mind went back to memories of my own days as a student at Spring Valley. I had started 1st grade in the fall of 1957, when Richardson was just beginning to grow. Texas Instruments had just moved into Richardson and brought continued growth for the next few years. Our neighborhood was just inside the Dallas city limits but the Richardson school district.

In 1st grade, I attended Richardson Heights Elementary School, which – I believe – was the only elementary school in Richardson at the time. At about 4 miles away, it was the closest one to my home. I usually rode the bus, although I have fond memories of my sister, Patsy – who was a senior at Richardson High School – occasionally picking me up and taking me for ice cream at a nearby ice cream parlor.

However, Richardson’s growing number of young families meant that more schools were needed. In 1958, Richardson Terrace Elementary School opened, and I went there for 2nd grade. It was barely closer than Richardson Heights, so I was still a bus rider. Patsy was now away at Hardin-Simmons University in far-off Abilene, which meant no more ice cream after school!

In 1959, it was off to the brand-new Dover Elementary School, still several miles from home, for 3rd Grade.

In 1960, Richardson finally opened a school in my neighborhood, just a couple of blocks from my house – Spring Valley Elementary School, where I went for 4th & 5th grades. Then, in the summer of 1962, my parents and I moved to Kansas City, MO, where I attended my fifth elementary school in six years! I finally got some stability from grades 7-12, attending only two more schools, one junior high and one senior high.

So, to recap, I was part of a select group of kids (those in my neighborhood during those years) who attended four Richardson elementary schools and helped open three of them!

I have some very specific – even historic – memories of those two years I spent at Spring Valley. On January 20, 1961, our 4th-grade teacher, Mrs. McClearin, wheeled a little black-and-white TV into our room on a cart, so that we could watch the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy and Texas’s own Vice-President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Less than 4 months later, toward the end of the school year, as we arrived at school on the morning of May 5, 1961, we found a TV on the little colonnade outside, where we watched Alan Shepard become the first American in space during a 15-minute suborbital flight.

In 5th grade, on February 20, 1962, the entire school spent most of the day in the cafeteria, where we watched coverage of John Glenn becoming the first American to orbit the Earth during a three-orbit journey that lasted about 5 hours.

Looking back, I appreciate the Spring Valley teachers and administration of that time – led by Principal Durward Stewart – for acknowledging the importance of current events as a key part of a student’s education.

Perhaps that was a spark for my developing interest in politics and the “space race.” I came to love watching President Kennedy’s press conferences, which were usually held – and televised – in the late afternoon after I arrived home from school. I became fascinated by the space race. In the summer of 1969, I used my high school graduation gift from my parents – a reel-to-reel tape recorder – to record the audio of TV coverage of the Apollo 11 Moon mission, then edited it all, resulting in a tightly-edited 15 hours of tape – including narration and explanation provided by an 18-year-old Bill Jones. Today a portion of that project is digitized and resides on a dedicated YouTube channel. (I’m still working on adding the rest of it.) Perhaps my experience at Spring Valley is partly responsible for that.

I also have a more personal, not-so-historic, memory of my 4th-grade year at Spring Valley. On Sunday evening, April 16, 1961, I was baptized at First Baptist Church of Richardson. At school the next morning, my friend Gordon Hamrick – who also attended FBC Richardson – announced to the class, very loudly, “Hey, everybody, Bill got ‘dunked’ last night!” Some things you just never forget, you know?

Well, it was a special time. I enjoyed every bit of my three opportunities to return to Spring Valley Elementary School this past year. I so enjoyed getting to know Brona Hudson, SVE principal, and Wilshire’s own Shana Gaines, SVE assistant principal. They are gracious and made me feel welcome every time – their hospitality knows no limits, and I wish them both the best as they move forward in their careers of service to schoolchildren and their families.

I also appreciate the opportunity to serve on Wilshire’s Christian Advocacy Committee; it is service on this committee that has afforded me these special opportunities, and I can’t say enough about the leadership provided by my friends Heather Mustain, associate pastor for missions and advocacy, and Abbey Adcox, missions and advocacy coordinator. We are blessed at Wilshire to have outstanding leadership and special people who care about ministering to those in need. Thanks be to God.