Click Here for Story on Helen D.
Williams, Director of Verse Choir, Hickman High School
Picture of Mrs. Williams dedicated
at David H. Hickman High School
November 14, 2003
Speech Book of the Verse Choir
Helen D's daughter
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HELEN D. WILLIAMS
In the summer of 1990 I spent a
day visiting with Helen D. Williams as I had done through the years, but
this time was very special. She told me she was going to start work
on a book and she wanted me to write the introduction. I thought
only things she had said had stuck with me, but some things I had said
had also stuck with her. On her 95th Birthday, July 17, 1990 I put
a picture and article in The Columbia Daily Tribune
and I guess it generated quite a few phone calls and letters. Helen
D. was very taken by the amount of people that contacted her after the
article appeared on her birthday. I went by and saw her a couple
weeks after her birthday and then I got
too busy again with my life and the next
thing I knew, Mrs. Williams had died.
We are her Class and we must carry
on as she would want us to do by coming together for her. She loved
all of us and always said we weren't just her last class (by retiring the
year we graduated), but her best class and that is quite a title to live
up to. Anyway that is how she remembered us. She was one of the last
high school teachers we had, and in my book, she was the best, of the best.
I thought of her for a long time before I started working on this reunion.
I hope you will be thinking of her on your way to this reunion, I'm sure
she will be thinking about us, we are "The Class of 1963."
Written in June of 1998, while putting
things in order for our 35th Class Reunion.
Charley Blackmore, HP (Class of '63)
This is the article I put in
The Columbia Daily Tribune on July 17, 1990.
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This page is dedicated to the
memory of Helen D. Williams
(July 17,
1895 - January 17, 1991)
OBITUARIES
COURTESY OF "
THE COLUMBIA DAILY TRIBUNE "
Helen
Williams
Helen
Williams, 95, of Columbia died Monday Jan. 7, 1991, at Boone Hospital Center.
Services will be at 1:30 p.m., Saturday at First Baptist Church with the
Rev. Dan Day officiating. Visitation will be from 6 to 8 p.m. tomorrow
at Parker Funeral Service. Burial will be in Columbia Cemetery.
Mrs. Williams was born July 17, 1895, in Marble Hill, to the Rev. and Mrs.
William Davault. She was a graduate of Southeast Missouri State Teachers
College, and she earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Missouri
and a master's degree from Washington University. She taught American
history for eight years at Hickman High School and served as a principal
for 15 years and director of speech activities for 25 years. It was
during her time as director of speech activities that the verse speaking
choir became a major activity at the high school. She was nationally
known for her speech programs, especially in Chicago and in Oklahoma, and
toured through the New York state universities demonstrating those programs
for two years. She wrote many magazine articles, mainly concerning
verse choir choric training. She was a member of the First Baptist
Church, the FA Chapter of PEO, Phi Beta Kappa, Quota Club and Gamma Phi
Beta.
She is survived by a daughter, Emily Peirce of Baltimore.
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Biography of
Helen D. Williams
Helen Davault
Williams was the third child of Rev. William A. and Margaret Emma Williford
Davault. She lived in Columbia, Missouri where she taught at Columbia
High School and David H. Hickman High School from 1924-1963. There
she was director of speech activities and was vice-principal for 15 years.
In 1917 she was married to Charles H. Williams. Their daughter, Helen
Emily, now Mrs. Brooke Peirce, was head of the English Department of Baltimore
University and her husband was head of English at Gaucher College.
Mrs. Williams graduated from Will Mayfield College and Southeast Missouri
State Teachers College, then received her A. B. degree from Missouri University
and a Master's degree from Washington University at St. Louis. She
was elected to the honor organizations of Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Lambda Theta
and Delta Kappa Gamma. Her social sorority is Gamma Phi Beta an she
was active in P. E. O. and Quota Club. She was a member of the First
Baptist Church of Columbia where she wrote and helped present a pageant
on the history of the church for its sesqui-centennial. While at
Hickman High School, Mrs. Williams directed the senior plays, the assemblies
and, for several years, coached the debate team. She was most dedicated
to the speech choir work because of the influence of beautiful poetry on
her students and the joy it brought to audiences. The following paragraphs
from a program folder, used when the choir performed for a Summer Arts
Festival in 1960 at the State University in Brockport, New York, tells
of that achievement. It said, "A combination of dancing, dramatics
and narration is the basic make-up of the 115-member nationally known Hickman
Verse Speaking Choir. It has performed at the National Convention
of Oral Reading Arts in Chicago and appeared before the National Insurance
Convention at the Jefferson Hotel in St. Louis. In New York State
they presented programs at three branches of the State University, the
Nazareth College at Rochester and Cornell University at Ithaca. Mrs.
Helen D. Williams, a teacher by vocation, is the originator, producer and
director of the choir. One of the highlights of her career was when
she was commissioned by the Missouri State Teachers Association to write
and present a choric drama for their centennial before 16,000 people."
www.kewpie.net
Class
of 1963
Thanks,
Charley Blackmore
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