HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN PASCO COUNTYThe Trilby SchoolA post office was established at Macon in 1885. The post office was renamed Trilby in 1901. An 1885-86 list of Hernando County schools shows a Macon School. The 1886-87 Florida State Gazetteer shows A. I. Wyatt as the teacher at the Macon free school. School board records show a request for a school at Macon in 1887. The minutes of Feb. 6, 1888, have: “Mr. D. T. McLeod appeared, asking the board to pay him $26.00 (?), amount that he claims to have assumed & will have to pay towards the building of the Macon School house.” An article by Charlotte Tyer in East Pasco's Heritage has: In 1910 the school was a two-story wooden building on the west side of present Highway 301, across from Cummer Road. It burned on a cold night with frozen ground; the sixty-odd students weren't too unhappy. The grownups built another two-story schoolhouse of brick, which later burned too. Earl Tyer's garden on that spot will turns up pieces of desks and old square ink bottles; he irrigates from the old schoolhouse well. Trilby School in those days was the center for political rallies and for social life. Cliff Couey remembers one special softball game when the fat women played the skinny men, with proceeds going to the school. Everybody went to Friday afternoon programs or plays once a month, there being no electric light for night activities. According to McCormick, the first school was built in Trilby in 1905. Sometime later the building burned. In 1910, the school was a two-story wooden building on the west side of the present highway 301 across from Cummer Road. This building site was located on the Earl Tyer property. A second two story brick building was constructed and housed grades 1-10. This building burned and the children were sent to the Methodist Church and Masonic Lodge until the present building was built in 1934. This was a three-classroom school with inside restrooms, lunch room, and auditorium with a stage. At the school board meeting of July 3-5, 1916, Prof. E. B. O'Berry was appointed Principal of the Trilby school. Miss Lena Mickler, Miss Sidney Curry, and Miss Laverna Hughes were appointed assistants. The minutes of the school board meeting on Sept. 4-5, 1916, have: “Board considered plans and specifications for the building at Trilby. Upon motion duly seconded Board voted to adopt plans and revised specifications submitted by Mr. C. H. Glass, said adoption of board subject to validation of bonds issued by the district.” A 1926 Dade City Banner refers to the Trilby school as a high school. On Sept. 4, 1936, the Dade City Banner reported that Miss Ila O'Berry was appointed Principal of the Trilby School, and Mrs. Bethel Revels, Miss Pearl Epting, and Mrs. Ruth Byrd were appointed as teachers. On Aug. 10, 1945, the New Port Richey Press reported, “A contract has been let by Board of Public Instruction, Pasco county, to E. C. DeLong for the construction of a school building in Trilby, to replace the building destroyed by fire in October 1943. The contract, which is for $16,116, calls for the building to be completed by the first of the year. Preliminary work has already begun in preparation for the construction which is to be of concrete.” On Aug. 23, 1946, the New Port Richey Press reported that William Whitney Lavender was appointed principal of the Trilby Elementary School. According to McCormick, in 1965 the Trilby Elementary was closed. The building was vacant two years and the Pasco County Head Start moved to the building and continued until 1978.
Principal William R. Laurie (b. Nov. 4, 1930, Winter Haven) attended school in Winter Haven through 8th grade and moved to Dade City in the summer of 1942. He attended 8th grade at Dade City Grammar School and graduated from Pasco H. S. in 1948. He attended the University of the South in Tennessee and the University of Florida. He taught at Dade City Grammar School after Trilby. He later founded American Reading Service, American Heritage School and American Academy in Plantation, Florida. |