Word has reached us of the passing in April in Arkansas of MS. MARTHA JANE FERGUSON, the phys ed teacher and coach who came to Normandy in 1947-48 and stayed more than three decades. An instant hit when she came to the school, "Fergie" was an ever-cheerful, always energetic taskmaster. Coinciding with her arrival, county funds came through to finish the swimming pool built into the Big Gym when it went up in 1929. Miss Ferguson was named swim coach before there was a swim team to coach. Attending high school in Springfield, Missouri, Miss Ferguson entered the Ozark-Missouri tournament in which she triumphed in tennis, volleyball, softball and track on the same day. "As long as I kept playing I felt swell," she told the Courier, "but the minute I sat down I was dead." She also held the Springfield tennis championship for three years. During her two years at Drury College Miss Ferguson was tennis champion and lettered in basketball, volleyball and softball. At Southwest Teachers' College she then was tennis champion two years. In summers Miss Ferguson served as a counselor of swimming, tennis, basketball and canoeing at various camps. She also enjoyed golf and horseback riding. Her first year at Normandy, besides swimming, she coached volleyball, hockey, basketball and archery. Typical of her go-for-it ethos, Miss Ferguson put four swimmers into AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) competitions six months after the pool opened in 1948-49. Sally Dillard, Jane McCool, Nancy Dierkes and Joyce Roper won AAU competitions despite their brief preparation time. "I don't think we even knew what the AAU was," Sally Dillard Charles says now. "We did know she believed in us." Miss Ferguson also started a synchronized swim team which performed water ballet. She was instrumental in widening athletic opportunities for girls in St. Louis area high schools at a time when Normandy found locating opponents to play a challenge. One of Miss Ferguson's great pleasures became the home she shared on Lake Adelle in Dittmer, Missouri, with English teacher and debate coach Helen Shipman. A familiar sight to Normandy students was their arrival at school after an hour's drive each morning, Miss Shipman blissfully napping and Miss Ferguson wide awake, seated at the wheel with perfect posture, smiling and ready for another day. Before coming to the Western Hilltop Miss Ferguson had taught nine years at Rolla and West Plains high schools, but it was clear when she arrived at Normandy the school and the teacher were made for each other. Here she stayed and here she became a school treasure. |
Pamela R Hegger
I thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Ferguson as a gym teacher and softball coach. She apparently saw something in this gangly freshman who had just started throwing fastpitch softball.