In him, black students found a teacher, nurturer

Ernest Ponder, who taught at Gibbs and then Lakewood High, told kids how to play the hand they were dealt, and play it well.

By SCOTT TAYLOR HARTZELL
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 18, 2002

ST. PETERSBURG -- When more than 200 admirers honored Ernest A. Ponder in 1994, the educator wept.

Former student Rosalee Peck spoke at the event: "I remember once when we were complaining about using (damaged) books sent to Gibbs from white schools. Mr. Ponder said calmly, 'Okay, we'll just read from the pages that are left.' "

"When he got up to talk, he started crying," said his wife of 56 years, Clara Ponder. "He had to sit down and continue later. I'll always see him in the classroom teaching."

From 1945 to 1969, Ponder battled segregation's fallout as a Gibbs High School instructor. He headed Gibbs' social studies department and founded its choir before teaching at Lakewood High School. After his retirement in 1979, he wrote and lectured on local black history.

"Ernest made a tangible contribution to society and the world because of his talents and drive," said Ella Mary Holmes, who befriended Ponder while both were Davis Elementary School students.

Ponder, then 6, came to St. Petersburg in 1924. His legally adopted mother was the acclaimed educator Fannye Ayer Ponder. Her husband, James Maxie Ponder, was the city's first black physician.

"Ernest was an energetic, curious child, an achiever," said his sister Alyce Bennett.

When the Depression closed local black schools in 1932, Ponder attended Bethune-Cookman College and later graduated from Morehouse College. He studied at the New York School of Embalming, married in 1942 and then worked in Washington for the War Department.

In 1945, Ponder returned to assume his mother's position as social studies teacher at Gibbs High School. "I taught in the same room she taught in," Ponder said.

For 25 years, Ponder convinced Gibbs students they needed an education. He helped them financially and counseled them on personal problems.

"He encouraged us to learn despite the conditions that surrounded us," Peck said recently.

Said Emanuel Stewart, 84, former Gibbs principal (1958-1970): "Ponder put 60 minutes' worth of work into every minute. I would have loved to have him as a brother or a son."

In the late 1940s, Ponder founded Gibbs' St. Cecelia Choir, which performed throughout Florida.

"When they sang at white churches, they were told to enter the back door," Clara Ponder said. "Ernest had them walk down the center aisle with heads held high."

Clara Ponder said her husband refused a position as principal because he loved teaching. He had a knack, she said, for communicating with teens.

"How many of you would like a nice marriage?" Ponder once asked students. "If you get pregnant, you can forget it. School is still the gateway to many valuable rewards."

In 1969, at the rocky onset of integration, Ponder began teaching at Lakewood High School. "I don't think he had any problems," Clara Ponder said. "The kids took to him."

After his retirement in 1979, Ponder served with the Area Agency on Aging and the Silver Haired Legislative Delegation. He wrote and lectured on black society's contribution to the city.

"The history of the black community in St. Petersburg is like the glimmer of a darting snowflake," Ponder noted in A Panoramic Glimpse of Black History in St. Petersburg. "Thus a search for (black) history results in a configuration of pieces here and there."

In 1986, Gov. Bob Graham appointed Ponder to the Distinguished Black Floridians Council. Three years later, Ponder rebuffed school integration and proposed open enrollment or school choice.

"I see kids now looking angry at the world," Ponder said. "There is something artificial about school integration. It gives us the notion that we are in, but we are still out."

In 1994, Florida declared Oct. 15 Ernest Ayer Ponder Day. More than 200 Ponder devotees gathered the next day at the St. Petersburg Howard Johnson in "A Celebration of Love." Red ribbons with gold lettering echoed the group's sentiments: "Because Of You, We Are."

Former students praised Ponder for helping them with lunch money, school supplies and bus fare when transportation was not provided for black students. One graduate thanked Ponder for giving her daughter a violin for music class.

"Mr. Ponder has spent more than 40 years earning his 15 minutes of fame," said former Ponder pupil Dr. Kha Dennard, one of the event's organizers and member of the 70-strong Friends of Ernest Ponder.

On Jan. 18, 1998, Ponder died at home of heart failure. He was 79.

"You can't imagine the shock I felt," Holmes said. "I raced over to his Lakewood Estates home. Ernest and I were friends to the end."

-- Scott Taylor Hartzell can be reached at hartzel@msn.com.

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