Portia Gaines:

A poll of Shelby County residents a couple of years ago sought to identify women who best represented Shelby County with their outstanding accomplishments and contributions through dedication and passion to their chosen field. It was no surprise that Mrs. Portia Gaines was one chosen for a life reflecting the commitment and care to generations of students privileged to have her as their English teacher.

On Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023, Portia, as we all came to know her, passed away peacefully at the age of 92. Ms. Portia has now moved on from her home in Shelby County to gain a pair of much earned angel wings carrying her to her new heavenly home.

Over the years, I had the privilege to meet this wonderful and amazing woman. First as my son’s high school English teacher, then as a fellow choir member at church, and later honored with her treasured friendship. We shared many things including our love for reading and the need for proficient writing skills. She also happened to include loving our children into her family of hundreds of other students that passed through her doors at Center High School.

My biggest honor has been sharing her story in local publications, praying she would be gentle and forgiving as she likely found grammar and punctuation errors.

We will hold Portia close to our hearts, knowing we’ve been permanently touched by a woman who made it her life’s work to make a difference in those who crossed her path.

When Portia was nominated as a “Star over Shelby County,” she laughed, saying, “All I ever did was teach.” That may have not seemed like much to Mrs. Gaines, but her students all say otherwise.

Some people are born to be teachers. Mrs. Portia Gaines definitely fell into that category. Her teaching career spanned generations of students during sixty years of teaching in Shelby County. It’s difficult to find a student that graduated from Center High School or Panola College who didn’t have her for a teacher.

Portia Gaines grew up in a family that not only loved music but were teachers as well. Her father was a member of the Stamps Quartet who traveled around the country singing gospel tunes. He was performing at a concert held in Idabel, Oklahoma, where Portia’s mother, a young elementary school teacher, attended. According to Mrs. Gaines, “they met, fell in love, and the rest is history.”

Her mother and father encouraged Portia to read as a child. She loved books, and she was one of the most avid readers I have known.

Her parents received the Christian Science Monitor, the Dallas News and two Shreveport newspapers resulting in her learning how to read at an early age. Even though she was hesitant to leave her mother’s side on her first day of school, once she saw the chalkboard at the front of the classroom, Portia said she “turned loose and ran to write on the board.”

Following graduation from Center High School, Portia enrolled in Centenary College in Shreveport, La. where she received her bachelor’s degree in just three years. She later attended Stephen F. Austin where she received her master’s degree. Initially, she taught seventh and eighth grade history and geography at Center Elementary, but eventually she was transferred to Center High School where she taught college-prep English, for what she said was “a long, long time.”

As a brand-new, young teacher, Portia recalled the moment Mr. Oran B. Wheeler, the principal, presented her to her first teaching class with the following words of encouragement, “Get a big board and don’t let them run over you!” She laughed out loud when she shared this and winked, not admitting whether she ever had to use that “big board.”

Portia said she had very interesting classrooms; emphasis on “interesting.” One seventh-grade class was held in a self-contained classroom located in the dressing rooms just off the stage in the old three-story building. After the new school was built and the old school torn down, Mrs. Gaines taught English to a group of students she lovingly referred to as “her football boys.”

Eventually, Portia retired from teaching in the Center Independent School District in 1991. This did not slow her down, though. She continued to teach English at night at Panola College until she retired in 2015, saying she thought she was probably the oldest living, working teacher in the county.

Her teaching was not limited to the school classroom. Portia also taught Sunday School at the First United Methodist Church of Center for 15 years, loving every minute of it, and still attended every Sunday she was able. She continued to support all church, school, and community activities she could while enjoying seeing her former students’ children and grandchildren excel as their parents did before them.

For those who had the privilege and pleasure of taking English classes with Mrs. Portia Gaines, they all agreed on one thing. She may have been teaching and writing on the chalkboard for a lot of years, but she still enjoyed her students as much when she retired in 2015 from Panola College, greeting each former student with the same enthusiasm she did when walking into her first classroom fresh out of college.

Portia’s granddaughter, Emily Glass, has followed her in her love of teaching. Emily is now teaching English at Center High School in the “Gaines” tradition, serving up heaping doses of kindness and humor in all that she does. It will be no surprise that Emily will someday be one of the bright shining “Stars Over Shelby County” just like her grandmother before her.

Sweet Portia, you will be missed, but I can imagine the magnificent library awaiting you beyond those pearly gates, where you may read to your heart’s content and discuss literary works with the likes of the classic authors, such as Dickens, Shakespeare, Steinbeck, and others. For this writer, it will be difficult to finish reading a new book without setting it aside to pass on to my favorite reading buddy. ----- Terri may be reached at P O Box 28, Center, Texas 75935 or at btlacher@sbcglobal.net