I was saddened to learn just last week of the passing of a colleague from my first eight years teaching at Luttrell Elementary School. I have throughout the years had many colleagues, most of which were just acquaintances, but a few who became treasured friends.

Mr. Jimmy Ken Lilley was that rare individual who bridged the gap between the two. I first met Mr. Lilley during inservice week of my first teaching year in 1987. My former Maynardville Elementary 7th grade spelling and writing teacher Ms. Kate Lee Ray introduced us. She said, “I hear you’re going to Luttrell.” I told her that I was, and she told me that Mr. Lilley taught there. Ms. Ray said, “I taught at Luttrell for several years. Let me tell you how to survive at Luttrell. You stay in your room, keep your door closed, keep your kids quiet, and the way you do that is to keep them so busy they don’t have time to look up.” Her advice proved right on the money for the time, but how times have changed! That advice wouldn’t work for any teacher anywhere at present.

Mr. Lilley intimidated me in the beginning. Gruff is the word I would have used to describe him.

I was luckier than most new teachers. My first classroom was in the newest addition to the building and was really two classrooms with the divider opened. I had two sinks, two bathrooms, two storage closets, two blackboards, two tall bookshelves, and colorful furniture about three years old. It was a little bit of teacher paradise, and I was at least smart enough to realize that, green as I was.

My next interaction with Mr. Lilley was when he stopped in one day toward the beginning of the year to tell me which students he needed to pull for Title I reading and math.

There were some students in both thirty minute groups, and others in only one of the two. I didn’t dare ask him how I was supposed to teach students who spent a great portion of their instructional day in another teacher’s classroom.

The entire time I worked with Mr. Lilley, he had the same method of picking up his students. He would come to my classroom door at the exact appointed time, lean lazily against the jamb, and dourly call out “Reading” or “Math”, as the case was.

There was one afternoon that Mr. Lilley came to my door toward the end of the day, leaned lazily against the jamb, and asked, “Mr. Mincey, do you have scissors for all your students?”

Well, let’s see. As for teaching supplies, I had a teacher’s edition and the accompanying pupil texts for all the students, three reams of copy paper, and a short Christmas tree with decorations. It just so happened that I did have a scissor rack with several blunt nosed student safety scissors, indeed enough for my small class. I was thrilled that I had something that I could possibly share with other, more seasoned teachers.

I proudly replied, “Yes, would you like to borrow them?”

“NO! I was going to give you some if you didn’t have any!” Mr. Lilley growled. Somehow that tickled my funny bone, and I never saw Mr. Lilley as intimidating after that. I had caught a glimpse of another side of Mr. Lilley’s character, generosity mixed with unintended humor.

That is not to say that I didn’t have an appreciable measure of reverent fear reserved just for Mr. Lilley. There was the time that I was making a bulletin board (yes, from scratch, for me a marvel!). I needed a picture of a young child reading. What to my wondering eyes should appear but a poster taped to the inside of the outer office door of a child hiding under a sheet at bedtime reading a book by flashlight. How perfect!

Here I made an assumption that justified my larceny. I figured that someone had just attached the poster to the door because it had come in the junk mail with which schools are so often plagued. I had need of it, didn’t figure anyone else would care, so I took this poster, cut it up, and put the picture of the reading child in the “window” of the house on my bulletin board.

It wasn’t long after that word spread around the school that Mr. Lilley was looking for whoever had stolen his poster from the office door. Instant fear fell on my soul, but I was smart enough not to admit my theft. Every day when Mr. Lilley came to my room to pick up his reading or math classes, I just knew he was going to spy the remains of his poster on my bulletin board and dress me out right in front of my class. It was a long time before I shared this story with any other soul.

Perhaps it was because of this incident that Mr. Lilley had written across his purple ashtray in the teacher’s lounge: THIS ASHTRAY WAS STOLEN FROM JIMMY K. LILLEY LUTTRELL ELEMENTARY.

There was a time that Mr. Lilley, Mark Martin, and I (among a few others) were elected as delegates to the Tennessee Education Association Representative Assembly in Nashville. It was agreed that Mr. Martin and I would carpool to Mr. Lilley’s house in West Knoxville, and that he would drive us to Nashville.

Mr. Lilley was a very organized, precise individual. Everything in his teaching life appeared to be in perfect order. Every year he decorated the hallways at Luttrell Elementary for the Christmas season, and exquisite would not be a descriptive enough word to convey how exceptional a decorator he was. I had heard stories of how his own home was just as meticulous. I craved the opportunity to see the interior of his home, but I would not have dared ask to impose myself. Mr. Lilley was a private individual.

I suppose he knew that Mr. Martin and I would like to see his home, and when we arrived he guided us in transferring our baggage into his impeccable vehicle and instructed Mr. Martin to park his car in his garage while we were away so it would be safe. Then he said, somewhat humbly, I thought, “Ah, come on in and look this place over if you want to.”
I remember Mr. Lilley’s home looking like the ones in Better Homes and Gardens, and that did not surprise me at all. What I remember being most impressed with was the four white Greek-looking statues that lined the front of the outside of his house, each representing a different season.

When people traveled with Mr. Lilley, he liked to take them somewhere to do something of particular interest to them. After discussion, he dropped Mr. Martin and me off at the Country Music Hall of Fame. He told us he had already seen it, so he would go do something on his own while we were sightseeing. We arranged to meet him in the parking lot at a specific location when we finished.

Unfortunately, no specific time was set, and time rather got away from Mr. Martin and me. I didn’t help matters any, for I wanted to read every word of every sign of every exhibit. When we finally emerged, we met a very aggravated Mr. Lilley who went to no pains to disguise his displeasure. He sharply said, “You should have told me you were going to be in there that long, I could have done something else!” I’m afraid we put Mr. Lilley in a bad mood for the rest of the trip, at least the part he had to spend with the two of us.

Mr. Lilley was always polite to his female coworkers. Each morning while we were in Nashville, he would take coffee to all the ladies from Union County so they could enjoy it while they were getting ready to go to the first meeting of the day.

The evening of the first day of the TEA meetings our entire group from Union County went to eat in downtown Nashville. As we were walking back to our motel, we three men, protectors that we were, walked in front of the women. I was on the inside closest to the buildings. Just as we rounded a corner of one of the buildings, I almost ran headfirst into a black man coming from the side street. “AWWHHH!” I yelled. Mr. Martin and Mr. Lilley both got a great deal of enjoyment out of my fright. Mr. Martin said he didn’t know who was more scared, the black man or me.

On our way back home after the meeting, I somewhat jestingly suggested that we eat at Hooter’s. Mr. Lilley obligingly pulled into the parking lot. I might only have been halfway serious, but it didn’t keep Mr. Lilley, Mr. Martin and me from eating at that fine establishment well known for its wings! I’m sure there haven’t been many times that an odder group dined in such a place. I’ll admit I sure enjoyed the “scenery”, and I know Mr. Martin enjoyed it even more. As for Mr. Lilley—well, he suffered us to be the fools that we were!

It was getting somewhat late when we got back to Mr. Lilley’s house. Mr. Martin laughed as only he could every time he remembered me saying to Mr. Lilley as we pulled into his driveway, “You know, Mr. Lilley, it’s getting kind of late. Why don’t we just stay all night with you and go home in the morning?” Mr. Lilley said, quickly and loudly, “NO! I don’t want you.” That might have hurt my feelings if it hadn’t been so funny. I wouldn’t have wanted us, either!

I have more to tell about Mr. Lilley, but I’ll save it for next week. When I think of Mr. Lilley, I am reminded of several lines of poetry from Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “Richard Cory”:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored . . .

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;

. . . admirably schooled in every grace: