Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Toney An Educational Treasure

Several decades ago, a search for excellence began in the life of a young Arkansas boy.

This boy, who was the son of a sharecropper and blacksmith, sought a treasure that only he could find.

Clyde N. Toney eventually found that treasure -- education. The results are that the knowledge he acquired has now become the key to this success and the method in which he has taught the following important lessons of life:

• A person must help himself by pursuing the very best for his life.
• Once a person is able to help himself, he can then help others.
• One must give back to his community, which adds to the betterment and improvement in the quality of human life.

Had his life gone in another direction, he might have very well remained a highly skilled machinist, who lived in Indiana, Oregon, Illinois or California. However, he found his place in Arkansas -- specifically Pine Bluff -- and became a contributor to the field of education as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, superintendent and director of admissions. For this, Toney is considered a unique part of Pine Bluff's black history.

He has been recognized for a number of achievements and holds numerous offices in several different organizations.

In 1988, he received both the Leadership Pine Bluff Hall of Fame Award and a Presidential Citation from the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. He was appointed by former Arkansas Governor Dale Bumpers as the first black to serve on the state's Industrial Development Commission. He was also the first black to serve on the Planning Commission in Pine Bluff.

His current membership includes serving as chairman of the Jefferson Convalescent Home board, vice president of the family community development Corp. (formerly Jean's Addition Improvement District), a member of the Service Corps of Retired Executives, a member of the Southeast Arkansas Development Corporation board and treasurer with the Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Museum Guild.

Although Toney has been retired from the school system for more than 10 years, he continues his daily interactions with a variety of customers, visitors and colleagues. They often stop to see him at Zenith Furniture, a store he owns in downtown Pine Bluff.

Raised in Rosston, he attended schools at Sweet Home Elementary School Oak Grove High School, which was previously Nevada County Training School.

"It was tough in those days. We had limited facilities and limited funds," he said.

But like so many blacks of that day who grew up in small southern towns, Toney had to learn to do the best he could with the little he had. He went to work as a custodian in Waterloo at a refinery plant. In 1939, after marrying the former Sallie Bailey, he was drafted into the U.S. Navy, where he served two years. After he was discharged, he returned to Rosston, where he was offered his old job as custodian.

But the navy had given him "insight that I should try to do something," he recalls. He inquired with the Veterans Administration to obtain information. He finally left and went to Portland, Ore., thinking he would go to school there. However, he returned to Arkansas and was advised to attend Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College (AM&N), now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB). But, instead, he went to Rockford, Ill., where he worked at a foundry. He found this area very cold and he longed to be back in Arkansas. That's when he decided to enroll in AM&N, and he went to Pine Bluff in December 1943 to find a place to live.

He graduated from AM&N in 1950. After graduation he briefly worked for the college before heading to South Bend, Ind., to join Bendix Corp. But Arkansas always seemed to call Toney home. He moved back to Pine Bluff and taught school and worked at the Pine Bluff Arsenal. He later joined the Dollarway School District as principal at Spring Hill Elementary School, one of four black schools in the Dollarway District.

He was later named principal of Townsend Park Elementary, still in the Dollarway District. When Dollarway built a new high school for blacks, he was eventually named principal of the school in 1964; by then he had a master's from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. When Dollarway intergrated, the district turned Townsend Park High School into a junior high. Toney elected at that time to return to the elementary school as principal until 1975.

A the encouragement of Dr. Herman Smith, who was then UAPB chancellor, Toney became director of admissions at the university. During his stint with UAPB, enrollment went from 1,900 to 3,100 within four to five years. Toney remained with the university until 1983, when he retured. Or so he thought.

"I was just beginning to relax and I received a call from the board at Rosston," Toney said. The Oak Grove school board was looking for a superintendent, and they had decided he would be perfect for the job. "I went there for an interview and I got the job that day," he relates.

The school board offered him $23,000 a year, but he did it for $9,000, because he was already drawing social security and other retirement. In addition, he said the school district was broke. "They didn't have the money to pay their light bill and they didn't have the money to get the gas turned on," he said.

He took the job for one year, and led students, faculty and staff tghrough a tough period of time, showing them how to be resourceful until they received their first allotment of money from the state.

"So the gas company wouldn't turn the gas on until we could pay the bill. The light company did extend us a little time, and that's the only way we had water..." At that time Oak Grove's water supply was from a deep well.

The school made it through the hard times, received its first allotment of money and was able to get the gas turned on. Toney went one step further in empowering Oak Grove by starting a clean-up campaign.

"We cleaned up the school, the campus and over that period of the year we laid sidewalks, did repair work, painted a portion of the gymnasium, did some other painting and worked on the roof," Toney said.

The school was also able to purchase computers and conduct a major fundraiser, which involved contacting graduates of the district and requesting donations. One former student made a donation of $500, "which was unheard of for a high school," Toney said.

"And when I left there at the end of that year. . .I left that school with $65,000 (in its budget)," he