Before electric bells signaled the beginning and ending of classes, recess and lunch, that job belonged to Otis Phillips, the LHS janitor remembered fondly by generations of students.
Gail Mayes Edenfield, Class of ’69, photographed the old school bell and, in May 2001, talked with Luray Sharpe Reid, Class of ’51, about what she remembered.
Luray recalled seeing Otis standing beside the bell in the courtyard, pocket watch in hand, waiting for exactly the right moment to ring it. During her school years, changing classes meant listening for Otis and that bell.
But ringing the bell wasn’t the only musical contribution Otis made to life at LHS.
Luray remembered him as a fine piano player. During recess, he would sit down at the baby grand piano on the auditorium stage and play jazz while students gathered around to listen.
Years later, Otis happened to be working in Luray’s neighborhood and knocked on her door. He asked whether she still had a piano and whether he could come inside and play it. She gladly invited him in. He was a little rusty at first, she remembered, but before long he was playing again.
Luray’s brother, Malone, later had possession of the old school bell, although Luray wasn’t certain how he acquired it. Gail understood that Luray eventually donated the bell back to the school. Today, the bell is preserved in the meeting room of the Toombs County Board of Education.
For those who remember it, however, perhaps the best place for that bell will always be the LHS courtyard, with Otis Phillips standing beside it, pocket watch in hand, ready to ring in another part of the school day.