Joyce Richardson spent 44 years teaching English at Dollarway High School, and shortly after retirement her name would be minted on a new addition to the building.
“She taught us about Macbeth (and) those CliffsNotes no one could ever understand,” Jackie Charles Talbot said. “She knew it explicitly, and she was really a good teacher, and she was concerned about each and every student. She brought it to life. It’s like it came off the pages to life because she was very dramatic, as if the book came alive. She could tell you a story, and you knew you were right there.”
Richardson died May 17, according to an obituary from Proctor Funeral Home in Camden. She was 87.
She taught high school English for 45 years, retiring from Dollarway in 2004, according to the obit. When a new structure in front of the school’s “Square” opened in 2006, it was christened the Horton-Richardson Building, named after her and former Dollarway School District teacher and administrator Maurice Horton. The building is now occupied by the Explore Academy.
Alumni, including Talbot, who graduated from Dollarway in 1983, credit Richardson for encouraging them to be their best in their writing skills and helping them take an interest in storytelling and poetry.
“She gave each and every child the ability to write a poem,” Talbot said. “If you didn’t have anything but three lines, that was a form. When she got through, you were writing poetry.”
Talbot, a library assistant in downtown Pine Bluff, added that Richardson helped her foster a love of reading.
“She was a serious-type person but always willing to work with you,” said Vicki Hughes, a 1986 Dollarway graduate. “She had a passion for teaching. She didn’t hesitate if you needed extra help. She was right there.”
Hughes is writing on the genealogy of an aunt soon to turn 96, and she attributes the encouragement for those stories to Richardson.
One rule of Richardson’s has stuck in Hughes’ mind: “If we ever used the word ‘ain’t,’ we would get it for that one,” she recalled.
“I don’t think when we were in school in ’86, we had a bad teacher,” Hughes said. “They were firm and strict, but in the long run that’s what they needed to do. She had a passion for the subject and teacher. It showed in everything she did.”
Born in the Ouachita County community of Lester, Eleanor Joyce Richardson graduated valedictorian from Chidester High School in the county in 1955. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Henderson State University, then a teachers’ college, in 1960 and a master’s degree from Auburn University in 1968.
Richardson moved from Pine Bluff to Camden in 2013, according to the obit.
A graveside service was held for Richardson on Friday at Memorial Park Cemetery in Camden.
