Wright County Distinguished Retiree selected

The Wright County Retired School Personnel recently named Francis Paulette Davis Stewart as this years Wright County Distinguished Retiree for the Missouri Retired Teachers Association (MRTA).
Paulette attends MRTA meetings and donated to the Pink Pig, which is a local charity for the Wright County Children’s Home, sponsored by the local MRTA unit. She is also known for often talking to retired school personnel about becoming a member of the MRTA.
She contributes ideas for unit projects and turns in community service hours. Paulette also attends Region 10 meetings when she can. She enjoys her retirement, but misses the students and the camaraderie of the staff.
Biographical
information
On July 4, 1946, Francis Paulette Davis came into the world with a bang at 6:45 p.m. Her parents were Paul and Margie Davis.
After her birth, her father was forever attempting to find the largest firecracker possible to commemorate the event each year.
She has always been known as Paulette.
She began her schooling in a one room schoolhouse, Glenwood, in northern Wright County. By the time she turned 8, her parents moved to Kansas City, Kan. There she attended Lowell Elementary School until sixth grade. She then went to Raytown South Junior High School, where she would become a badminton champ in ninth grade as sports were her favorite past time.
By the time she was a sophomore, Raytown South Junior High School opened their door for the first class. Each year another class was added until she was among the first graduating Class of 1964.
During her high school years, she worked for TG&Y Dime Store for three years as a cashier.
After marriage and two children, her father’s health became poor and he bought his family’s home place back in Wright County. Many weekends were spent repairing and modernizing the house. In April of 1971, Paulette, her husband, her children, and father and mother left Kansas City for country life. Her children would be enrolled in the Hartville School System. She began working with gardening and bottle feeding calves. With some culture shock setting in, she went on to sell Avon, which was a good way to meet neighbors. Other jobs included working at a cafe in Hartville and being a bookkeeper at Farmers & Merchants Bank in Mansfield.
After two years there, she was a records keeper for Empire Gas.
She went on to then be a secretary at Grovespring Elementary School in 1983 and worked for the district the next 30 years before retiring in 2013.
Paulette notes that in the beginning, there were 226 students in Kindergarten-eighth grade.
Her most vivid memory from this first days was when a woman came running down the driveway yelling for help. Paulette went to the doorway and found the woman was being chased by a hog. She had knocked on the door of the house on the north of the school and the hog came around the side of the house grunting at her, causing her to run.
Doors were used to get the hog to lay down on the school porch. The owner was contacted and the hog was hauled away.
Over the next 30 years, Paulette would have memories at the school involving dogs, hummingbirds, snakes and even an ostrich.
At the time of retirement, circumstances took the school down to sixth grade being the oldest students as attendance was just over 100 students, though her love for the students only grew.
In 2013, she also retired to life on a beef cattle ranch.
Paulette’s life included working cattle and in the hayfields. She also took trips to Washington D.C., Hawaii and the Grand Canyon. She also spent five years as the community representative for Ozark Action in Grovespring.
Paulette has taught 10 years of Sunday School at church. She has also been supportive in the Hartville Garden Club, selling raffle tickets and baking cookies. She currently serves the Senior Citizens in Grovespring as their secretary/treasurer.
Paulette supports all of the reading programs at the school, and with her daughter, Lea, attends many Hartville Eagles’ sporting events.