Collection Title: Jackson Purchase Oral History Project – Schools and Education
Series Number: OH242
Interviewee: Cox, Bettie Coulter
Interviewer: Bates, Mary
Date interviewed: September 13, 1979
Processed by: O’Daniel, Hannah
Date processed: February 6, 2014
Description: 1 sound disc (23 minutes)
Abstract: Bettie Coulter Cox of Paducah, Kentucky offers biographical information on family members, describes the 1913 and 1937 floods and her teaching in segregated schools. Cox recalls her childhood education at the Lincoln School in Paducah, attending West Kentucky Industrial College and many other academic institutions. She recounts her first teaching job at Mayfield Model School in Graves County, Kentucky and sub sequential teaching positions at Dunbar City School of Mayfield, Lincoln Elementary School, Lincoln Junior High School, Lincoln Senior High School and Paducah Tilghman High School. Other topics that she discusses are the establishment of the National Junior Honor Society at Lincoln Junior High School and the first Negro Girl Scout Troop in Paducah.
Biographical / Historical note: Bettie Coulter Cox was born in 1908 in Paducah, Kentucky. She attended first through twelfth grade at the Lincoln School in Paducah. After graduation, she attended West Kentucky Industrial College where she obtained her teaching training certificate. She received a Bachelor’s degree at Kentucky State University and a Master’s Degree at University of Michigan. She completed summer school work at Lane Cottage, in Jackson, Tennessee and the University of Cincinnati and later correspondence courses from Kansas State College. She taught for a total of fourteen years, from 1927 to 1941, at the Mayfield Model School, Dunbar City School in Mayfield and Lincoln School. She taught at the Lincoln Junior High School from 1941 to 1964 and at Lincoln Senior High in 1964 and 1965. From 1965 to 1973, she taught English at the desegregated Paducah Tilghman High School in Paducah, from which she retired. She died at the age of 92 on September 1, 1998 in Paducah.
General information: No user access to original recordings. Use audio user copies, digital derivatives, transcripts, and/or tape indexes. This collection may be protected from unauthorized copying by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code). Permission for reproduction must be requested from Murray State University.
Subject Headings / Descriptors:
Cox, Bettie Coulter, 1908-1998.
Kentucky – Race relations.
Education – Kentucky – Paducah – History.
Education – Kentucky – Mayfield – History.
African Americans – Education – Kentucky.
Segregation in education – Kentucky.
Floods – Kentucky – Paducah.
Girl Scouts of the United States of America.
