William L. Mayo

William Leonidas Mayo was born on November 3, 1861, in

Prestonburg, Kentucky

He began his teaching career at age 14 when his school teacher was elected as sheriff. William as the best student in

the school, was asked to take over on an emergency basis. Mayo completed his secondary education at Cedar Bluff Academy

in Virginia before he enrolled at the Central Normal College in Danville, Indiana, where he studied science, mathematics, political

economy, history, literature, and the history and practice of teaching .After Mayo graduated from Central Normal with high

honors in 1883, he returned to Cedar Bluff Academy in Virginia as a full-time teacher and principal.

He spent a season cutting logs to earn money for additional study at Indiana University. The

project ended in disaster as a flood washed away his entire season's work.

Mayo left for Denver, Colorado, to take a position in the Denver public school system. When

he arrived there and discovered that the school system was integrated, he resigned rather

than teach black and white children in the same classroom.

“You give me the will and I’ll give you the education. I’ll provide a

garden plot or a cow or a job so that you can sell vegetables or

milk or ring the college bell or do janitor work to earn your way.”

He believe that education would pave the

way to better things in life.

Known as the “poor man’s” college.

Mayo was primarily interested in developing strong

minds not well conditioned bodies…

However he soon realized that physical education was an

important role to educating the mind.

He was married to Etta Booth and

they had 8 children….

5 of those children survived childhood. Here are the

oldest four pictured.

On March 14, 1917, he received word in Commerce that the House of Representatives had

passed the bill that appropriated funds for the purchase of the school. While walking back to

the college from the telegraph office, he suffered a heart attack. He was taken to the

administration building, where he died a few minutes later.

Texas A&M Commerce Today

There are many alumni's I could mention, but 2 I found are Mark Seliger who was the Chief

Photographer of Rolling Stone from 1992-2002 and Jon Gilliam who was a player for the

Kansas City Chiefs and also played in the first Super Bowl.

Credits

Northeast Texas Digital Collection

Wikipedia

Texas State Historical Society