ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
World War II, the Space Race, the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the new millennium.
All of these are events that have happened in the past century, and local resident LaVon Holt, who turned 100 years old Friday, has borne witness to them all.
“It’s unbelievable, and I feel like it’s a miracle. I’ve been very, very blessed in my life, and I’ve had the Lord looking after me and helping me whenever I need it,” Holt said.
As Holt tells it, her story has been a long and interesting road.
“I was born Jan. 24, 1925 in Hugoton, and I lived there for the first 17 years of my life until I went to college,” Holt said. “In the summers when I was older, I was a lifeguard and helped out at the swimming pool in Hugoton to help make money to go to college, and that was a really fun job. I’m the oldest of five girls, and there are three of us still living – me, my middle sister, and my youngest sister. I started college at Fort Hays State University and ultimately decided to transfer to the University of Kansas, and I graduated from there with my degree. After I graduated from KU, the principal I’d had at Hugoton while in high school, who was by then the superintendent in Coldwater, had found out I’d majored in English, so he called and asked if I’d come teach. That meant I technically didn’t even need to apply for my first job, which was great.”
Holt’s teaching career would last multiple decades and take her to a few different places not just in Kansas, but around the world.
“I taught in Coldwater for one year at the high school, and then my husband and I moved to Liberal because he had a job with a furniture company, and I was also pregnant with our first son, who I stayed home with for a while, and then later on was when we had our other son,” Holt said. “I stayed home with them until they were old enough to go to school, and then started teaching half-days at what used to be Garfield Elementary School because the principal taught half-days and they needed a half-day teacher. I started there as a substitute for the sixth grade teacher, who later decided to retire, and I took over her class. Then, they decided it was too much and the principal didn’t need to teach half-days, so then I started teaching full days. I taught at Garfield Elementary School for 31 years, mainly sixth grade, and that’s a wonderful age group to work with because you can do so much with them. And there was never a day when I didn’t want to go in, I just loved it all so much. Then, I taught one term down in Australia – I started there May 15 that year and came back Aug. 20 so I could be back in time for the new school year in Liberal. They had a teacher who had become ill and needed a replacement for her, so I got to do that, which was a wonderful experience, and the students there got a kick out of having an American teacher. Later on, they decided to move the sixth grade classes to what used to be West Middle School, and I decided that would be a good time for me to retire because I didn’t really want to move to the West Middle School, and I’d been in the Garfield Elementary School building for so long by that point, it was basically my home. I never substituted because I always knew if I wanted to teach, I would want to teach full time and not hop around from building to building. My very first year I taught was in Moscow, which was during the war, so a lot of the men had to go into the military, and they were short on teachers, so I thought I could drop out between my junior and senior years at KU and teach for a year, which is what I did. And I guess it was meant to be, because that’s also where I met my husband – when all the young men came home from the service, there was a big dinner for all of them in Moscow, and they all got a war bond. One of the teachers I was working with was dating my husband’s best friend, so that’s how I got acquainted with him, and we ended up dating and getting married less than a year later around Christmas time.”
With such a long and storied career, Holt said she would not change a thing.
“I absolutely loved teaching, and if I could put one foot in front of the other, I was in the classroom with my students, and that also extended to my grandchildren and later my great-grandchildren because I babysat after I retired, and almost every moment is a teaching moment with young children,” Holt said. “It was really a blessing to be able to do that with them because it not only let me spend time with them, but also let me still teach, to an extent. A great thing for me is seeing former students, which I do frequently around town. When you have a child in your classroom for nine months, you get to know them really well and they almost start feeling like they’re your own, and your class becomes almost like one big family. In fact, I’ve gotten a couple calls from former students already – who I haven’t taught in decades – to tell me happy birthday, and that’s amazing. I also really enjoyed being able to get to know my students’ parents as well. My love of teaching made it all worthwhile, it never really felt like a job to me, and every year was a wonderful experience because I got to work with so many different children and so many different personalities, so every day was interesting. I’ve gotten to see multiple former students start businesses and families in town, and it’s just so neat to see where everyone has ended up in life and what they’re all up to.”
Holt added growing up when she did was very different compared to today.
“We spent a lot of time playing outside, and it didn’t really matter what type of weather was going on, we wanted to be outside playing games and having fun,” Holt said. “We also had a lot of family get-togethers, because family was VERY important with my family, so that time was important. We got together on all the big occasions like birthdays and holidays, and we had a bunch of picnics that had a bunch of good food. When the war was going on, there were a lot of shortages of certain things, and there was a chunk of time when my parents didn’t really have a lot of money, so times could get pretty tough. But we made do with what we had, and if there wasn’t money for some item or another, we went without. I remember it was hard for my parents to keep me in shoes since I was outside so much. In terms of historical events, there are a few major events that stand out, one of which included the attempted assassination attempt on President Reagan, because my class and I actually sent a handmade get-well card, and we ended up getting a thank you card from the White House. World War II also stands out to me since that’s around the time I started teaching, and like many others, 9/11 also broke my heart. Something else that’s really changed is the electronics nowadays. When I was growing up, there wasn’t really too much available in that respect, and it was a BIG deal when you got a television set. There also weren’t cell phones or anything like that around when I was growing up, and nowadays, you almost HAVE to have one. There’s also been big changes in the teaching profession itself compared to when I was a teacher, and there are so many new tools around for teachers and students to use. It’s almost mind-boggling to see how far we’ve come in that respect, and I can’t fully say one way or another whether those changes are good or bad.”
Overall, Holt said, she feels very privileged to reach 100 years old.
“I’ve always eaten pretty healthy, and when I was a teacher, I told my students multiple times ‘If you eat junk food, you’ll have a junky body.’ I grew up when home-cooked, balanced meals were the norm, and to this day, I still think it’s very important to eat healthy and put good food in your body,” Holt said. “I’ve also been involved in church in some capacity since I was really little, and having that background and relationship with the Lord has also been really beneficial as I’ve lived out my life. I’ve had an absolutely wonderful life and I’ve been so blessed day after day, year after year, and that’s become more obvious as I’ve gotten older. I can’t believe I’m 100, but here we are, and I can’t wait to see what’s on the horizon.”
