Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 10, 1994 TAG: 9406170072
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"I have people coming up to me all over the place saying they had your class," Montgomery County School Board Chairman Roy Vickers told the retired English teacher. "I've had hundreds of phone calls in support of naming the school after you."
Not missing a beat, Kipps looked up from her wheelchair and joked, "Well, next time you can say, 'Sir, I need my time for important things.'"
Kipps, accompanied by her 93-year-old brother, Mike, met with Vickers and county Board of Supervisors Chairman Larry Linkous on Thursday to be officially informed of the naming of the new Kipps Elementary School, which will open in August with the new school year.
The siblings live at Heritage Hall nursing home and heard the news in its Sunshine Room, as a small crowd of employees and two relatives from the Fredericksburg area looked on.
Mae Kipps, who taught at the old Blacksburg High School for 40 years, took the honor in stride, displaying great charm and a keen sense of humor.
Asked how she felt about the school name, Kipps responded with savvy. "The answer to your question is, when you don't know exactly what to say, reverse the question," she said.
Actually, it was more of a ceremonial photo opportunity, a warm and humorous event, far removed from the politicking and controversy - including a temper tantrum by one angry School Board member - that led up to the vote at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday to rename the school.
The original name, West Blacksburg Elementary, drew fire from town residents and Kipps supporters alike, who criticized it for being a bland, generic moniker.
But none of that mattered Thursday. Linkous, who now owns and lives in the former Kipps homeplace near the new school, had come over the night before to tell her the happy news.
"We were neighbors and friends for years," Linkous said. "They taught my mother and brothers and sisters. In a lot of cases they taught three generations" of county families. Florence Kipps, who died in the early 1980s, taught for 35 years. She took five years off at one point to care for their elderly mother.
The Kipps sisters retired in the mid-'60s, before Linkous reached Blacksburg High. But according to everything he's been told, "They were excellent teachers," Linkous said. "They were disciplinarians, but children learned."
Kipps, wearing a floral-print gown and pink slippers, recalled the advice she and her sister, known by her nickname of Pat, received at the start of their careers from their uncle, whom she said was principal of Christiansburg High School from 1906 to 1936.
"Whatever you do, be good to all people," Kipps said. "Don't have any special regard for anyone, so that when you get to be old, old ladies, the children will say, 'She was very good.'"
|GENE DALTON/Staff Mae Kipps and her brother Mike take in the ceremony for the school's naming at Heritage Hall.|
|PLEASE SEE SCHOOL/2 School|
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Memo: ***CORRECTION***