To a high school
student determined to be a journalist, Hazel Presson made
quite an impression. She was only 5-foot-2, but she could
breeze into a classroom with the trim, tailored look of
Katherine Hepburn's savvy newspaper woman in the 1940s movie,
"Woman of the Year."
But
while Hepburn's movie journalist cared only about her own
career, Hazel Presson happily spent 42 years teaching thousands
of English and journalism students the communication skills
they would need in their careers and lives.
She called us
her "Chickadees," and inspired us with her enthusiasm
and zest for life. She had a wry, endearing smile and her
blue eyes sparkled when she talked. She had no use for the
boring and bland and expected lively, intelligent writing
and feedback from her students – even if some assignments
she gave us weren't quite as interesting to us as they were
to her.
Having her as
both my English and journalism teacher my senior year at
Northside High School nearly wrecked me. I was consumed
with writing for the student newspaper, The Grizzly,
and I gave my newspaper duties and deadlines priority over
all other assignments – including the ones in her English
class. I especially recall her fondness for Shakespeare,
whose works we had to study and be tested over for nine,
long, weeks.
In March of
1960, I was lucky to be among a busload of Arkansas students
Miss Presson shepherded to the national Scholastic Press
Association convention in New York City – where The
Grizzly won several top awards. But I was even luckier
to pass HP's English class with a B average.
After high school,
I married and moved to the Midwest. By the time I moved
back to Fort Smith with my husband and five children in
1983 and began writing for the Times Record, Miss
Presson had retired from teaching. When I began writing
about her in my Offbeat column, I eventually began visiting
her and we became friends. When I was her student she already
had several of her journalism and history textbooks in use
in many schools in and outside of Arkansas. But finally,
she was getting to work on the novels and short stories
she had always wanted to write "someday."
After she learned
we both liked "tuna fish sandwiches," she invited
me to her wonderful old home on South 36th for lunch now
and then. She made delicious albacore tuna sandwiches and
three bean salad and we would eat and laugh and talk about
life, writing and dealing with computers, which she was
gamely learning to do. She was overflowing with story ideas
and often offered me great tips for column subjects.
Sometimes we
ate in her formal dining room, where I could see her colorful
collection of ceramic hen bowls. Other times we sat in the
nook next to the kitchen at the heavy antique table with
the big lazy susan that Hazel loved in the middle of it.
Everything in her house, which had belonged to her parents
and where she lived most of her life, was interesting, fine
and beautiful -- just like Miss P.
Two of Hazel's
dearest friends, I discovered, were Sondra LaMar and Janet
Ledford – who were also Hazel's journalism students
and Grizzly staff members. The three of us have since talked
about how hard it was to start calling Miss Presson "Hazel,"
and how very special it was to have her friendship as adults.
A few times the three of us took Hazel to her favorite restaurant,
Taliano's, where she enjoyed hobnobbing with her trio of
doting Chickadees.
"She was
truly a cultured lady of refinement – she loved a
party," Sondra reflected recently. "She was such
a strong woman mentally and emotionally. I'll never have
another mentor and friend like her. I cherish my time with
her and my memories of her."
When Janet was
editor of The Grizzly, she says, she was entrusted
with writing the farewell to Hazel's friend Earl Farnsworth,
the retiring principal of Northside High School, in the
Times Record.
"That was
a time of sharing and bonding that Hazel and I continued
through our years of friendship," Janet recalled. "We
had many special times together. One of my favorites was
our trip to Salt Lake City about five years ago to do research
in the genealogical libraries there. She was proud of her
heritage and it was so fun those few days, tucked away in
a library, seeing the glint in those steel blue eyes as
she delved into the lives of her ancestors."
Sondra assisted
in proofing Hazel's first novel, The River Is A Wicked
Witch, which was published in 1994. She also did the
cover design concept for the novel and the subsequent book
of short stories, The Ring.
Always modest,
Hazel dedicated her first published novel to: "The
students who have passed through my classes over the years.
How could I ever tell them what riches they have added to
my life?"
She dedicated
the proceeds of her novel to the Arkansas Chapter of The
Nature Conservancy, which she began contributing to in 1991.
Her plan and dream was for her gifts to one day help the
Conservancy purchase a nature preserve to be named in her
family's honor. In 1998 her dream came true, when 155 acres
of tallgrass prairie at Meek's Meadow near Charleston became
the Presson-Oglesby Preserve.
Everyone in the
chapter associated with the project was charmed 
by
Hazel, who not only visited "her" prairie land
with Conservancy members, but also accompanied them on field
trips to other sites, one of which was in swampy wetlands
that could only be reached by boat.
"She wore
a big-brimmed hat and reminded me of Katherine Hepburn in
The African Queen," remembers Dayle McCune, the chapter's
director of planned giving.
"She was
a wonderful person none of us will forget. I'll always remember
the serene expression on her face as she sat looking over
the prairie land the day it was formally named for her family.
It was like losing a member of the family when she died
in November."
Hazel's health
began declining in the late 90s, and Sondra and Janet were
happy to help her more and more with tasks she could no
longer accomplish. But 18 months ago, Hazel's beloved niece,
Ginger Jones, persuaded her aunt to move with all her belongings
to Starkville, Mississippi, so that she could be cared for
by family.
"She was
able to stay fairly active almost to the end," Ginger
told me recently. "She was a life-long Methodist, you
know, and she never moved her membership from First Methodist
in Fort Smith, but she went to the Presbyterian Church with
us as long as she could. The week before she died she had
her hair done. She just wouldn't miss that."
Hazel died Nov.
28, 2000. Ginger and her family are planning a memorial
service in her honor at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 24, at the
Woodlawn Cemetery mausoleum, where her ashes are already
interred. All her friends, admirers and Chickadees may attend.
