Arvilla O. Whitehead

is honored with a Medium Paver from Marilyn Whitehead Cariri and Carol Whitehead Trembley.

Arvilla Whitehead was left a widow with three teen-age children at the beginning of World War II. She had to prepare herself to support and school her children. She enrolled at Wichita University as a freshman in the Department of Education. At that time, there were very few older (over 40) women on campus. Arvilla got her thirty-hour certificate and began her teaching career in 1942.

Taking summer school, correspondence, and some night classes, she received her BA in Education in 1950. She enjoyed teaching in Wichita and area schools (Arkansas Avenue, Lincoln and McLean elementary schools), retiring in 1969 after twenty-six years of teaching.

In 1918, Mother had majored in piano at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas. She felt teaching school might be a more certain living than teaching piano. She liked her classes under Dr. Hanson, geography, and Dean Sipple. Her class in clarinet under Walter Duerksen was particularly challenging.

Mother moved to Meade, Kansas, her childhood home; she died in 1987.

Submitted by Carol Whitehead Trembley (BA in ED, 1944) and Marilyn Whitehead Cariri (BA in ED, 1947; Logopedics major)

July 28, 1998