Farewell to a great teacher

FIFTY YEARS AGO,  I was a student in Beth Gavin’s senior biology class. But she wasn’t there. Olive Berry had come out of retirement to substitute during the fall semester while Mrs. Gavin was having her third child, her son, Tom.

We noted the birth in Devil’s Chatter, the student newspaper, adding cheekily: “How’s that for knowing your subject matter?” Soon came the directive to destroy all copies of the issue and reprint it without that offending line.

Mrs. Gavin thought the handwringing was ridiculous. That was, by far, not the raciest thing she’d heard in years of teaching teenagers about reproduction and evolution.

“They all thought I was an atheist,” she recalled of first teaching country kids Darwin’s theory of evolution. (In fact, she was a Methodist.) Of her frank approach to teaching about sex, she said: “This is real life. This is what happens. And it’s not to be ignored or hidden. It just is.”

Mrs. Gavin brought that same matter-of-fact approach to all of the topics she taught over the decades at Holmes County High School — primarily 10th grade biology, where I first experienced her firm control of both her subject matter and her classroom. 

She’d already helped write the textbook we used, plus several others. She instructed us in the rigor of the scientific method through science projects we created and presented at regional, state and international science fairs. Her approval did not come easily. She drilled into us that we were just as able as students who came from bigger schools and fancier families in tonier towns.

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She expected us to grow up. She even took a lucky few of us on school trips out into the world beyond Holmes County, insisting we learn to behave properly, and adventurously.

“I was what other people might call ‘loose,’ but I thought that was all right,” she told me toward the end of her life as we recalled a memorable trip to the International Science and Engineering Fair in New Orleans when I was 16. “I do know that I have done some things wrong. But, then again, I wouldn’t undo them.”

She sponsored me for scholarships to summer science programs, where I lived and learned with other, smarter high school students from around the country. She led me toward college at Florida State, 100 miles away in Tallahassee, rather than staying home for junior college with everybody else.

“There’s a bigger world,” she would tell me.

And the encouragement didn’t stop when I graduated from high school. I had a friend and supporter for life. There were regular notes and birthday cards. And I’d better not be spotted back home in Esto without stopping for a visit with her.

She had a long retirement with her husband, Bill Tom, at their farm just across the dirt road from his family home, and not far from the house her mother built at Highway 2 and Gavin Road. As she aged, she kept her faith in medicine. When surgery was required, she was ready. “I believe in science,” she said. 

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A few days into the new year, at age 84, Elizabeth Gavin died. She will be much missed and long remembered by her family and friends and the hundreds of students whose minds she shaped.

She had three biological children: Gayla, Jennifer and Tom. But I always felt that Martha Cullifer Howell and I were a close fourth and fifth. Of Martha, she said, “I love her — I feel like she’s my oldest daughter,” while showing off a mug Martha brought proclaiming her Big Bad Bitchy Beth. 

“Write, call, come see me before I die!” she wrote in a birthday card for my 64th birthday. “I love my oldest son very much and miss you.” During one of our last visits she told me: “What matters to me are my children and certain students. Whatever they do, I love them.”

We loved you, too, Beth. You were a great teacher, in the broadest possible sense of the word. One more time: Thank you. Rest in peace.

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MAGGIE ELIZABETH PENTON GAVIN
(1938-2023)

Maggie Elizabeth Penton Gavin, who lived on Gavin Road, near Noma, died on January 5, 2023, at age 84, after complications from a fall.

Mrs. Gavin was a longtime biology teacher at Holmes County High School in Bonifay. She attended HCHS and returned to teach hundreds of Holmes County students from 1960 until her retirement in 1996. She received numerous awards for teaching excellence and led dozens of students to exhibit in regional, state and international science fairs.

Mrs. Gavin was born on July 7, 1938, to Erie Louise Ard and Clyde Hubert Penton. She was raised by her mother, who was an Assembly of God missionary.

She married Bill Tom Gavin in 1965 and is survived by their three children, Gayla June, Jennifer Leigh and Thomas Green. Survivors also include two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, plus legions of students she touched in her classroom.

Mrs. Gavin received her B.S. degree in 1960 from Florence State University in Florence, Alabama, now the University of North Alabama, majoring in business and biological science. She worked her way through college as a bookkeeper for a piano company and as a secretary in the college president’s office, and as a server on the food line in exchange for meals.

In 1961, she began her career in the classroom teaching business subjects at Ponce de Leon High School. The next year she moved over to HCHS in Bonifay.

In 1964, she received a national grant for teachers sponsored by President John F. Kennedy’s administration and went back to college for her master’s degree at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas. She was at the school when Kennedy was assassinated in nearby Dallas.

She returned to teach biology for a year at Chipola Junior College, then came home to HCHS, where she taught until her retirement.

In 1968, Mrs. Gavin received a grant to work on one of the earliest ecology textbooks with noted Harvard University biologist E.O. Wilson. She also helped write and develop practice exercises for several other textbooks.

After her junior year at HCHS, back in 1954, the Bonifay Women’s Club chose her as a delegate to the annual Girl’s State summer civic program in Tallahassee. She credited that experience and her admiration for Kennedy with inspiring her to become a lifelong Yellow Dog Democrat.

She remained active in political affairs throughout her career, serving as a member, vice chair and chair of the Holmes County Democratic Party. She was a delegate to state and national Democratic party conventions and worked for Governor Bob Graham, U.S. Senator Bill Nelson and President Bill Clinton. An invitation to President Clinton’s inauguration hung framed on her bedroom wall, along with many plaques for her work. 

Mrs. Gavin served as vice chair and chair of the Holmes County Development Commission and, for 20 years, of Doctor’s Memorial Hospital in Bonifay, helping to make the new hospital possible.

A memorial service will be held on January 10, 2023, at 11 a.m. at First United Methodist Church in Graceville, where she was a member.

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A STUDENT-TEACHER CONNECTION

ALMOST FROM THE very beginning of 10th grade biology class, I had a close, always direct, sometimes contentious connection with Beth Gavin, who left these inscriptions in my high school yearbooks.

1971 yearbook, 10th grade

1970-71 has been an unusually exciting year for me. The sophomores are terrific! All of you have about run me ragged just trying to keep up. I could never hope to be ahead of this class.

From your science project this year, I believe you have learned — beyond a shadow of doubt — that it is not just what your potential is that counts in the long run, but what you do with what you have that’s most important. Initiative and effort can bridge the gap between success and failure. Of course, I know you have the potential (which you had absolutely nothing to do with since you inherited that) but what I really admire in you is your willingness to put forth effort. No one can help what they are born with, but a great man becomes great because of that extra effort at just the right time and place. I believe you will never disappoint me by lacking the initiative and willingness to go the extra mile that brings success.

Because I insisted you pay very close attention to all those aggravating, time-consuming and minute details, not only while planning your research but also while performing it and writing the final paper in a just-so manner, I like to think that you have embarked upon a particular pattern of behavior that will endure all your life and which I firmly believe leads to success. The details of life are important! They tend to add up to make the larger and longer lasting achievements of mankind. I believe you are destined to contribute toward the good of mankind in a very significant manner.

The reward I like to think you received from doing your project is greater than just the public recognition of your scientific ability. It also included a definite growth toward manhood. Learning and accepting responsibility are important components toward attaining maturity as an individual. I have literally seen you grow as a person — what a thrill and source of personal joy.

The Region II Science and Engineering Fair was fun (even though it was disappointing since I sincerely believed you should have been awarded the Grand Prize and the accompanying trip to International Science Fair) but the state fair was hilarious, to say the least. I really did enjoy your and Donald Brooks’ company. To be around two such fine young men of your qualities is a pleasure that is often denied many teachers, and a pleasure of which I am quite justly proud.

May your vistas grow brighter and your horizons broader each year of your life.

1972 yearbook, junior year

Science projects came second to last on your list of endeavors this year, but even so, look what you accomplished. Just think what it could have been if placed first on your list. New Orleans and International Science and Engineering Fair were enlightening experiences. I’m extremely proud of you and am looking for greater research efforts after your eight week study at FSU this summer. Just think, not many students ever have such a great opportunity.

1973 yearbook, senior year

I would like you to know that instead of teacher being a good influence on student, I firmly believe you’ve been the good influence on me. The last two years of my life have been considerably different in a lot of ways, and I consider most of that your doing. West Palm Beach, New Orleans, San Diego and Tijuana all were possible due to you, and helped me to compensate in a more constructive manner than in previous years.

— Beth Gavin

P.S. I even enjoyed (to a degree) your most caustic and searing comments.