Bio: Edwin Sanders Richardson, Webster Par., Louisiana Submitted by Mike Miller Date: Aug. 2001 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** ===Edwin Sanders Richardson, superintendent of Webster Parishschools, has been identified with the educational interests andprogress of Northern Louisiana for a quarter of a century. On thescore of what he has accomplished, particularly as superintendent forWebster Par., Louisianahis name ranks high among southern educators andhe has won realty national distinction.Mr. Richardson was born near Minden, Webster Par., LouisianaAugust 31,1873. His parents were James S. and Sallie Catherine (Havis)Richardson, his father of Twiggs County, Georgia, and his mother ofTallapoosa, Alabama. They were young when their respectiveparents moved to Louisiana. James S. Richardson was a Confederatesoldier, member of the Nineteenth Louisiana Regiment and wasseverely wounded at the battle of Shiloh the 6th day of April, 1862. He was left on the field as dead, and although recovering in part fromhis injury, was a cripple obliged to use crutches for the remainder ofhis years. With this handicap, and sharing in the general misfortunethat overtook the South after the war, he returned home, educatedhimself, married and reared a family of six children, three sons andthree daughters. The example of what he accomplished has alwaysbeen an inspiration to his children. For twenty years he was theteacher of the Eureka School, now known as the Harris High Schoolin Claiborne Parish. He served as assessor for Claiborne Parish, andin other ways made himself an important factor in the public andsocial affairs of his community. James S. Richardson is nowdeceased, dying on the 22mmd day of December, 1919, but hiswidow survives him.The oldest of the six children of his parents, Edwin SandersRichardson grew up in a rural community, shared in the work of thehome farm, and acquired his early education under the guidance ofhis father. While still a youth he began teaching in Webster Parish,and in the intervals of teaching gained his higher education. In 1897he entered Peabody College at Nashville, and was graduated in 1900. After four years of teaching at Atlanta, Arkansas, Mr. Richardsonreturned, to Louisiana in 1903. For two years he was principal of theBienville High School. was then elected superintendent of theBienville Parish schools and under appointment from GovernorSanders, was a member of the faculty of the Louisiana StateUniversity until 1920. In that year he was elected superintendent ofthe Webster Parish schools. He has been continued in that officewithout opposition since that time.To that office he brought the knowledge of local conditions acquiredduring his own youth in the parish, his experience as a teacher there,his broader contact with educational affairs in the state, and a firm resolution to bring about equal educational opportunities for all the children of the country at equal cost, "a slogan that in less than fouryears has become more than an empty phrase." It is not nearly enough to say that the school facilities of Webster Parish are on a parwith the best in the state, but in many respects they are in advance ofother parishes of equal wealth and general development. For what hehas accomplished in this Mr. Richardson achieved national commendation.During the school year 1924-25 the Webster Parish school exhibitwon four out of the six major prizes at the Louisiana State Fair. Theexhibit was then sent to the Department of Superintendents inCincinnati and was there visited by thousands of teachers and others interested in educational affairs. Mr. Richardson accompanied the exhibit and delivered an address on "The county unit and the consolidated schools." His address and many comments on the schools of Webster Parish were published in many of the leadingeducational journals of the country.What has been accomplished in Webster Parish under the leadershipof Superintendent Richardson may be briefly summarized. At theclose of the World war there were thirty-nine school centers in theparish, thirty-five of them very small and in many cases the schoolswere taught by second and third grade teachers. In such districtscountry children were deprived of anything more than a fairelementary education. Under the slogan already quoted a campaignof education was carried on and the result has been the abandonmentof most of the smaller schools, the division of the parish in the tenhigh school communities, and the erection in each such community ofcommodious buildings, with provisions for forty automobile trucks toconvey pupils to and from school. Over half a million dollars inbonds have been voted for school plants, and every child in the parishnow has the opportunity with every other one to get an adequateeducation from the elementary to the high school grades.Mr. Richardson is a member of the National Education Association. As noted above, he was chairman of the Country Superintendent'sDivision at the annual meeting of the association in Cincinnati inFebruary, 1925.While teaching at Atlanta, Arkansas, Mr. Richardson married, May10, 1903, Miss Zanobia Longino. They are the parents of fivechildren: Edwin Leland, who is private secretary to CongressmanSandlin and while at Washington is a law student in George Washington University; Ruth, attending the Louisiana State Normal College: and Don, Evelyn and Edwin S., Jr., in the Minden HighSchool. NOTE: The sketch is accompanied by a black and whitephotograph/ drawing of the subject. A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 375-376, by Henry E.Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc.,Chicago and New York, 1925.