PEA RIDGE — I can’t remember when I didn’t know Russell Walker. He and his brothers and sisters have so long been part of the life of the Pea Ridge community, and of our family, that I have never known life apart from knowing them. When I first began to be aware of being alive, Russell’s father, whom we knew as Pete Walker, was on his way to being one of the old men of our area.
Russell himself was one of the soldier boys from Pea Ridge who fought in World War II. I think he was with a tank unit. His younger brother, Max Walker, was also in the Army, and was wounded in the Allies’ Normandy landing. Other brothers, Floyd and Clyce, may also have been in the military at the time. Their sister, Artie, (Mrs. Lester Hickman), had made a home for the younger boys of the family. Artie and Lester had a son, Roger, and a daughter, Virginia (Mrs.
J.C. Clanton), both of whom were longtime Pea Ridgers.
In the 1940s, we were all part of the Shady Grove community, a farming area north and west of Pea Ridge. Until the late 1920s, our Pea Ridge area featured many outlying rural schools, one of which was Shady Grove. Generally, farm families living west of Otter Creek and west of the Jacket Road (now Hayden Road) were Shady Grove folks. Families east of Otter Creek on Patterson Road and eastward were usually Twelve Corners folks. We were all Pea Ridgers, but the outlying communities back then still had a distinct identity “on Pea Ridge.”
Russell Walker’s early school days were spent at Shady Grove School, located on Arkansas Hwy. 94, northwest of Pea Ridge, north of the Blackjack Corner. Russell remembers having Faye Price as teacher as he finished sixth grade at Shady Grove in 1929.
The Shady Grove school building still stands on the corner where State Hwy. 94 turns west again.
In the early days, many ofus called the old school building SCUD. I’m still trying to find out why it was called SCUD. Actually, I’m wondering if that name may have come from the letters SGUD, which could have stood for Shady Grove Unified District. But I don’t know, and no one that I have questioned about it seems to know either.
In the fall of 1929, Russell transferred to Pea Ridge School, and entered seventh grade in the Old Pea Ridge College building. I think Shady Grove closed down then. The years 1929 -1930 was also the last year for the old college building. Russell recalls that the two-story building had a fire-escape slide at the west rear, exiting from the secondstory auditorium. He remembers sliding down the fire escape to go out to agri/shop class. The old agri/shop building later became the school’s “hot lunch room,” and after 1964 became a classroom, counselor’s office and, eventually, the headquarters for the S.E.E.K. program. In Russell’s school days, the building had a large door in the middle of the west end, where farmers and townspeople could bring in their wagons and buggies for the agri boys to work on. Russell must have learned carpentry there, too. He has used his carpentry skills widely through his long working life, and has won the admiration of many families, including our own.
Another thing I have enjoyed learning from Russell is the story of the origin of our first real school gymnasium. Basketball as a sport was invented about 1910, and pretty quickly caught on in schools in towns like Pea Ridge. Russell’s brothers, Ray, Glen, Floyd and Clyce had all played Pea Ridge basketball on very strong and successful teamsduring the 1920s, before Pea Ridge had a real gymnasium. Many towns like ours had no indoor facilities for basketball, and games were played on outdoor courts. During Russell’s time in school, in 1931, the townspeople began building a real gym at the northwest corner of the school campus (where North Curtis Avenue ends at Pike Street today). I had heard the date 1931 given for the origin of our old gym, and at first I assumed that it was all built that year. But Russell describes the gym as several years in the making. As money could be raised, another part of the building would be constructed.
The gym’s hardwood floor was finally completed about 1935. In the early days, in addition to basketball, the gym floor was used for roller skating.
That reminded me that when I started school in 1946, there was a sizable stack of old roller skates and junk parts piled outside along the east wall of the gym. Some of us boys tried to salvage enough parts to make skates for ourselves. We didn’t get far with that.
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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
News, Pages 5 on 03/07/2012