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Yvonne Veasey Receives MCSD Service Award
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At the September Board meeting, Yvonne Veasey was recognized with a
special service award and a standing ovation. Dr. Phillips introduced
her to the Board and presented her with the award. She is beginning
her 51st year with MCSD. No current employee has more consecutive years of
service. Yvonne started her career with the school district on August 21,
1956, and is now working in the same department.
She is a native of Covington, Alabama, but she and her three sisters
moved to Columbus with their parents, Henry and Daisy Eiland, in 1941.Her
father was a sharecropper who came to Columbus to find work in the mills.
Both her parents went to work for Bibb Manufacturing. Yvonne started
kindergarten at Fox Elementary but then transferred to Bibb Elementary. She
said, “Bibb was a place with so many wonderful teachers. I couldn’t wait to
walk to school every day.”
She graduated from Bibb Elementary three times. First, she graduated from
the sixth grade. The summer after sixth grade, a seventh grade was added to
the school, so she graduated again. The next year, an eighth grade was
added. After graduating from the eighth grade she went to Baker High School
and graduated in 1956.
Her principal, Ernest Cook, asked if she would be interested in working
for the school district. She began in the Special Services (Business
Affairs) by filing papers, typing, and counting the money the cafeteria
managers brought in. She said she got an education by listening and learned
what needed to be done and how to do it. Now her primary task is dealing
with building contracts. She is responsible for setting up meetings with
architects, informing builders when a project is coming up for bids and then
helping to tabulate the bids. She keeps in close contact with the builders
about project progress, handles their change orders, and makes sure they get
their payments on time.
Her job will get more challenging over the next few years because of
additional troops assigned to Fort Benning. An influx of approximately 6000
new students will likely necessitate the building of additional schools and
additions to other schools. This will also add some work to her unofficial
position as school district historian. She has a wealth of historical
information about the Muscogee County School District and says if anyone
ever wants to write a book about the school district’s history, they will
know where to come.
