User:KTownUSA/Kermit Elementary School



Kermit Elementary School is the only public elementary school in Kermit, Texas and is under the administration of Kermit Independent School District in Winkler County.

Kermit's first school (1910 - 1925)
The first school house was built in Kermit between 1908 and 1910. It was a one-room school building that was approximately 25 by 40 feet in size and was taught by one teacher. In 1910, there were about 40 students who had enrolled in the school.

Coming to Kermit in 1923, Mrs. J. B. Walton succeeded Mrs. Gussie Richberg as teacher of the Kermit school. Mrs. Walton taught two years there and then two years in Monahans, and returned in 1928 for two more years in Kermit. In 1923, Mrs. Walton had only one student, Louise Baird who later became Mrs. Tommy Thompson. Mr. G.E. "Tommy" Thompson was Superintendent of Kermit Schools from 1945–1978. The teacher lived in the Ern Baird home, now known as the Mediallion Home. By the end of the year 1923, there were only seven students in the school.

During the early to mid 1920s, the enrollment of the school dropped rapidly due to a major drought that forced many people out of Kermit and Winkler County. The population dropped so rapidly that by early 1926, there was only three residences and the court house that remained occupied in Kermit. In that same year, the nearest working telephone was located in Odessa, Texas 45 miles away. The only communication out of the city was mail shipped on horseback.

Establishment (1926 - 1929)
On Aug. 9, 1926, the Commissioners Court, with J. B. Walton, George D. Hogg and W. W. Birdwell present, resolved itself into a County School Board. They appointed W. A. Priest and W. E. Baird as members and established a second school in the county at the Waddell Brother's Ranch. The Hay Flat School had formerly been consolidated with the Kermit School, leaving only one school in the county.

The old county court house served as a temporary school. After a few more students started answering roll call in 1927, a rickety-board school house was erected, occupied by Miss Helen Frame as the teacher. It was located on Campbell Street directly south of the existing Kermit ISD archives building. In 1927, Hendrick No. 1, the name of the discovery well in Hendrick Field south of Kermit was completed and oil was discovered in Winkler County–the county that was to boom and bust, boom and bust, until the present prosperity came in with discovery of deep oil. The first permanent Kermit High School building was opened in 1928, two years after Kermit ISD was founded. It was located on the ground where the rickety-board school house was first completed in 1927. In 1929, the enrollment of the school was counted at 115 students. Today, on the site were the first Kermit HS building was, there is nothing but an open field and a few small, school-owned buildings. In the early 1990's the building burned down, and the cause of the fire was suspected to be arson. However, the exact cause of the fire is still unknown. Kermit's first athletic field, "Baird Field" was built near that site in 1935 in honor of W.E. Baird Sr., longtime school board president.

Music and Fine Arts
Kermit Elementary Music Kermit Elementary Music Teacher, Jeanie Gainey