Eula Massey Shaw (Ms. Barr Street 1964)
Greetings to all Tigers! And thanks to Michael Marsh and the Barr Street High School Foundation for preserving the history of this great school.
I was honored to serve as Ms. Barr Street 1964. After attending South Carolina State University and receiving a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English, I returned to Lancaster to teach at Barr Street High School, beginning a forty-three year teaching career. With the integration of Lancaster City Schools in 1969, I was one of the first African-American teachers to teach in the integrated system.
In 1975, I received a Masters Degree from Winthrop University, Rock Hill, S C and in 2002, achieved National Board Certification in the area of English Language Arts/Adolescence and Young Adulthood.
I married my wonderful husband, Richard Shaw in 1969. In 1973, Wyeth Pharmaceutical Company transferred him to Asheville, NC as territory manager for Western North Carolina. I taught English at both West Henderson High School in Henderson County (13 years) and Asheville High School, Asheville, NC. (20years). After a brief retirement, I accepted a position as Lecturer in the Education Department at the University of North Carolina at Asheville; I left this position in 2010 ending forty-three years as an educator.
Richard and I have a wonderful daughter, Felicia R. Shaw and a most precious grand daughter Leah Richelle Scantlebury who reside in Atlanta, Ga.
In retirement, I enjoy ballroom dancing, reading and having stimulating discussions with my book club. Presently, I am studying piano and Spanish. I am passionate about helping citizens understand their constitutional rights and getting them to act on preserving those rights. There will always be a struggle and it is important that each generation commit to the battle.
I am a member of Hopkins Chapel AME Zion Church and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
The following quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. expresses one of my core beliefs on the role of education; this I tried to do in my teaching and all other interaction with my students.
“To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction….
The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr., The Purpose of Education
