A tribute to Barbara Yarbrough
While at South Elementary last month for a story about the school's food pantry, a woman with great humor and animation spoke about the pantry is needed.
She shared a story from her teaching days. She had soup and crackers in her bottom drawer, and a girl asked what was going to do with them. The woman said she told the girl it was her "hard-timey stuff" for when she didn't have any money. The girl said she always has it "hard-timey" with nothing to eat for dinner.
So, the teacher gave the girl the soup and crackers and a can opener. The next morning, the girl came back saying, "We ate good last night." From then on, she came in everyday to get soup and crackers — and the woman said she would happily give it.
Something about the woman's compassionate and fiery personality instantly made me realize I wanted to know more about who she is and what her story was.
Her name is Barbara Yarbrough. I learned I could mention her to nearly anyone in the community, and they would know who she is. So, I arranged to meet her, and she was exactly what I expected.
She wore a big pearl necklace and earrings that didn't match, and she kept an aqua-colored pencil tucked behind her ear. She used her hands a lot as she spoke, and she searched for her "flippy" —an old flip phone — mid-conversation and realized she had probably dropped it on the classroom floor.
She is a genuine character.
Yarbrough told me she began working for Midland ISD in 1959 and has opened the school year 59 times; she missed one when she was on maternity leave. She is truly a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to being an educator.
Throughout her 60 years at MISD, Yarbrough has taught kindergarten, first grade, sixth grade, high school and art. She was a band chaperone for seven years and six weeks, and she has been the parent liaison at South since 1996.
Her imprint has been left on Carver, Crockett, Milam, Pease, South and Washington elementary schools. And she's also left an imprint on the west-side elementary school that is named after her.
The morning we met, she shared story after story with such passion and emotion in each word. The inflection in her voice made me feel like I was experiencing those moments with her.
She recalled a time when students began fighting in her classroom.
"Sticks, bricks, fists, bullets, gloves don't have eyes. But you have two good eyes, and if you go into the fight this afternoon, who's going to pay the doctor bill," she said she asked them.
And they stopped fighting.
"I've never been bored," she said. "I've been tired, but never bored."
This is because she lives by the mantra of one of her former teachers: Every child should be involved, and every child is important.
Even today, students will invite her to their game and other extracurricular activities, so she can be on the sidelines. But spending time with her students is her "driving force" and "the reason she wakes up each morning." She said she loves being able to watch them succeed.
"It's all about saying to children, 'OK, you're here now, but when you are 25, where are you going to be,'" Yarbrough said.
She said some of them are 25 now; some are even 70. And the answer is: they're across the world, serving as educators, preachers, doctors, attorneys, U.S. federal probation officers and with the FBI.
They are not only just successful, but also her "hangout dogs" and "travel buddies." They will often take road trips together and meet up for dinner, though she is surprised they still come around since she was such a "hard-a—" preparing them for the real world.
But they always told each other "family for life" — and they choose to live by it. Besides that, her "hardness" appears to have worked in favor for each of their successes.
Many of them still call her "Sweetheart" — a nickname they had given her 40 years ago. Her other nicknames include "Doo-op-a-dilly," "Booger," "Bruce," "Goofy" and "BJ."
And without any hesitance, she told me about students branding her as a "Black B----." She told me that someone finally got the nickname right, though everyone expected her to be mad.
"I said, 'They're calling me a female dog. Have you ever seen a female dog with her puppies? How does she act,'" Yarbrough said. "Everybody had not thought about it like that. I said, 'If she's not a b----, she didn't need her puppies.' If I'm not a b---- at this school when I'm in my protective mode, I don't need to be here. Because we are grooming the people who are going to take care of the world we live in."
While sharing this memory of when she was called slanderous names, she told me in the same breath that she works for the greatest ministry in the world. This is her character.
She attributed all her experience to a time she heard the voice of God.
Though she has worked at South for decades, she said she didn't want to at first, because she really wanted to be with the black students at Pease. So, she asked God, "Why me?" — and she heard a voice answer back, "Why not you?"
"He said to me, 'I sent you to be with people.'"
And, so, she has been — 60 years and counting.
Photo provided by Unsplash through SquareSpace