The recent death of Jesse Stuart Foundation friend and board member Ron Cartee prompts me to write about Ron’s relationship with Jesse Stuart and the JSF.
Jesse was almost always willing to help young people from Greenup County gain admission to college or find a job, and Ron Cartee was one of his favorites. Ron’s father, Russell Cartee, worked for Jesse for twelve years, and Ron worked on Mr. Stuart’s land while he was in high school and college. On May 29, 1965, Jesse and Deane both signed a copy of “The Thread That Runs So True” for Ron as a graduation gift when Ron earned his degree from Morehead State University. In his lengthy, full page inscription, Jesse observed that he remembered Ron “as a small boy carrying a horn at McKell High School.” Jesse wrote that finishing college was “the third important step “ in young Ron’s progress through life, and he observed with pride that, by becoming a college graduate, Ron was “now one of a small percentage of America’s young people.” A month later he wrote a glowing endorsement in support of Ron’s application for employment at Armco Steel.
Over the next five decades, Ron and his wife Diane achieved great success in the business world. In the last two decades, Ron and Diane became generous supporters of a number of eastern Kentucky educational and cultural institutions, including the Jesse Stuart Foundation.
Ron loved to donate books to his friends and to school children. One of Ron’s favorite books was “Mr. Gallion’s School,” because he was a student at McKell when Stuart was principal.
“Mr. Gallion’s School” fictionalizes Stuart’s personal experience, recounting his one-year return in 1956-57 to the principalship of McKell High School, where he had previously been principal from 1933 to 1937. He had just recovered from an almost fatal heart attack that had kept him bedridden the previous year. If education truly needed him, he would risk his health—much to his family’s dismay.
The novel, which he began writing in the winter of 1959, was written about the decline of McKell High School and his reaction to the social decay, the rejection of authority, and the decline of education in America. Set in the 1959-1960 school year, his novel champions Stuart’s core beliefs: that every individual can achieve success through hard work, honesty, fairness, respect for others, a commitment to excellence, and a competitive spirit,
“Mr. Gallion’s School” elevates Stuart’s personal experiences to heroic proportions. Mr. Gallion, Stuart’s counterpart in the novel, defeats bullies, school boards, and politicians, catches thieves, and restores pride in the school, which wins academic, band, and athletic recognition.
Gallion represents the kind of old-fashioned champion many of today’s readers want in their heroes and students deserve in their schools. And today there are still many Greenup Countians, including JSF Board Members John McGinnis and Duane Gilliam, who still fondly remember Jesse Stuart as the principal of McKell High School in the 1956-1957 school year.
For more information about Mr. Gallion’s School, contact the Jesse Stuart Foundation, located at 4440 13th Street in Ashland. Call 606-326-1667 or email jsf@jsfbooks.com.
James M. Gifford, Ph.D.
CEO & Senior Editor
Jesse Stuart Foundation
The recent death of Jesse Stuart Foundation friend and board member Ron Cartee prompts me to write about Ron’s relationship with Jesse Stuart and the JSF.
Jesse was almost always willing to help young people from Greenup County gain admission to college or find a job, and Ron Cartee was one of his favorites. Ron’s father, Russell Cartee, worked for Jesse for twelve years, and Ron worked on Mr. Stuart’s land while he was in high school and college. On May 29, 1965, Jesse and Deane both signed a copy of “The Thread That Runs So True” for Ron as a graduation gift when Ron earned his degree from Morehead State University. In his lengthy, full page inscription, Jesse observed that he remembered Ron “as a small boy carrying a horn at McKell High School.” Jesse wrote that finishing college was “the third important step “ in young Ron’s progress through life, and he observed with pride that, by becoming a college graduate, Ron was “now one of a small percentage of America’s young people.” A month later he wrote a glowing endorsement in support of Ron’s application for employment at Armco Steel.
Over the next five decades, Ron and his wife Diane achieved great success in the business world. In the last two decades, Ron and Diane became generous supporters of a number of eastern Kentucky educational and cultural institutions, including the Jesse Stuart Foundation.
Ron loved to donate books to his friends and to school children. One of Ron’s favorite books was “Mr. Gallion’s School,” because he was a student at McKell when Stuart was principal.
“Mr. Gallion’s School” fictionalizes Stuart’s personal experience, recounting his one-year return in 1956-57 to the principalship of McKell High School, where he had previously been principal from 1933 to 1937. He had just recovered from an almost fatal heart attack that had kept him bedridden the previous year. If education truly needed him, he would risk his health—much to his family’s dismay.
The novel, which he began writing in the winter of 1959, was written about the decline of McKell High School and his reaction to the social decay, the rejection of authority, and the decline of education in America. Set in the 1959-1960 school year, his novel champions Stuart’s core beliefs: that every individual can achieve success through hard work, honesty, fairness, respect for others, a commitment to excellence, and a competitive spirit,
“Mr. Gallion’s School” elevates Stuart’s personal experiences to heroic proportions. Mr. Gallion, Stuart’s counterpart in the novel, defeats bullies, school boards, and politicians, catches thieves, and restores pride in the school, which wins academic, band, and athletic recognition.
Gallion represents the kind of old-fashioned champion many of today’s readers want in their heroes and students deserve in their schools. And today there are still many Greenup Countians, including JSF Board Members John McGinnis and Duane Gilliam, who still fondly remember Jesse Stuart as the principal of McKell High School in the 1956-1957 school year.
For more information about Mr. Gallion’s School, contact the Jesse Stuart Foundation, located at 4440 13th Street in Ashland. Call 606-326-1667 or email jsf@jsfbooks.com.
James M. Gifford, Ph.D.
CEO & Senior Editor
Jesse Stuart Foundation
