Teachers

Lloyd Alexander is a retired professor from Kentucky State University. He discusses his family history; his career and life in the Parkland area of Louisville; recounts what Parkland was like in 1952; and how he was received as one of the first Blacks to move into the 2800 block of Virginia Avenue. He discusses the business, education, and retail landscape of Parkland and the deterioration of the neighborhood. At a time, thriving business and retail establishments along Virginia Avenue and Dumesnil Street. Parkland was a middle-class neighborhood during the 1950s.

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Sheree Beaumont was a teacher at Norton Elementary School at the time this interview was conducted. She answered questions regarding her younger influences, teaching experience, and thoughts about KERA (Kentucky Education Reform Act) and the teaching profession in general.

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The narrator discusses her teaching career which began in 1931 and ended in 1971.

Carothers talks about her travels, her work before coming to the University of Louisville Art department and her work on Beneath the Surface public art project which was exhibited on the bank of the Ohio river.

Eunice Brashear Collins describes her family’s long-standing ownership of land at Scuddy (subsequently a coal mining community), Perry County, Kentucky as well as her childhood and youth there in the 1920s and 1930s. Ms. Collins touches on her high school and early employment at nearby Vicco, as well as an early teaching job at Scuddy. In the later recollection, she briefly discusses race conditions in Perry County, including one particularly violent episode. Collins vividly recalls her two years at Alice Lloyd College at Pippa Passes, Kentucky, and the forces that eventually persuaded her to migrate to Louisville as a single woman, where she sought further education and held a series of World War II jobs. That work included employment at the Jeffersonville, Indiana U. S. Army Quartermaster Depot, the Charlestown, Indiana powder plant where she worked on the bagging production line, and finally as a business teacher at a Bowman Field recuperation facility for wounded soldiers. Collins describes how she met Bill Collins, whom she married just before he was shipped out for three years of military service, and the early difficulty he faced in the immediate postwar period when he settled in Louisville. Finally, Eunice describes her educational preparation and career advancement to principal of Chenoweth Elementary School in the old Jefferson County Public Schools and the special role she played in the mid-1970s in a merged system responding to a court-ordered desegregation plan.

Dario Covi was born in a coal mining town and grew up in a working class family. Early on in his life he showed an aptitude for art. Dario served in the Army during World War 2 as a typist. After leaving the army he earned his PhD in Art History from NYU. He taught Art History at the University of Louisville from 1956-1969 and again from 1975-into the 1980s. Dr. Dario Covi discusses growing up in a coal mining town and life in an Italian immigrant family. Dr. Covi relates his experiences as a soldier in World War 2 and his subsequent attainment of a PhD in Art History from NYU. Dr. Covi then goes on to talk about his experiences teaching at the University of Louisville from the 1950s to the 1980s, as well as experiences during the Civil Rights movement.

Mr. DiBlasi was born in Syracuse, New York to a military family. Mr. DiBlasi attained a Masters degree from the University of Louisville and currently teaches archaeology. He has worked on various projects locally, particularly involving historic cemeteries. Mr. DiBlasi discusses growing up in a military family and growing up in various places around the country. Mr. DiBlasi relates his experiences as a student at the University of Louisville in the 1970s as well as his time as a teacher and archaeologist. Mr. DiBlasi discusses the changes to the University of Louisville over the years, particularly with the archeology department, and the facilities changes over the years. Mr. DiBlasi discusses several campus incidents, including a massive sewer explosion and a hostage situation in the 1990s.

Experiences as a teacher and principal at Waggener High School.