Page 30 - Senior Link Magazine Summer 2021- Online Magazine
P. 30
Exceptional
Loving Sisters SENIORS
Embracing Lubbock
Mary Alice and Rita London
by Jane Bromley
his story checks all the boxes. After 9th grade, the
It’s heartwarming, inspiring, girls were bused the
Tand fun – because the London 12 miles to Carlsbad
sisters are all of the above. for high school, and
they are still proud
The story really does start with of their alma mater.
Loving – Loving, New Mexico – “The campus was as
where Mary Alice and Rita grew up. beautiful as many
Their “loving” parents saw to it that college campuses,
their girls had a happy childhood. and the teachers were Rita and Mary Alice London
“It really was a great place and great.” The sisters first Eddy Elementary in 1981, and
time to grow up,” Rita says. “Back graduated in ’64 and ’69 and then Sunset Elementary in 1997. She
then, you could ride your bikes went on to earn graduate degrees. retired after 34 years (9 as a teacher,
all day and not come home till the Neither of their parents had been to 25 as a principal), but later took the
streetlights came on.” Their father college, but they were determined reins as principal of the Catholic
was a mechanic, and their mom was their daughters would have the school for four years. “I’m a Baptist,
the Loving school bus driver. opportunity. but I loved it! I learned so much
while I was there.”
After graduating from
NMSU in Las Cruces, Rita Meanwhile, Mary Alice was getting
had a rewarding career as on with her own life. The older
an educator and school London girl has a little more back
administrator. Her first story. She was born with no left
three years were at Ft. hand, no left leg, and only four
Sumner, NM. “I really loved fingers on her right hand. It isn’t
it there,” Rita remembers. immediately obvious – probably
“They were country kids. because her beaming smile is the
Some of them were bused first thing you notice. The sisters
70 miles to school, and each attest to their parents’ wisdom
most of them had chores to in teaching Mary Alice how to
do before they got on the adapt. “They just treated me like
bus. They were real little everyone else. And when I got to
cowboys, who really had a school, there was no such thing
wonderful sense about life.” as special education. I was in the
classroom with everyone else,
Rita’s career path took her and I was expected to do all the
back to Las Cruces to teach same tasks.” She even played the
(and earn her master’s) and xylophone in the Loving Elementary
then back to Carlsbad where School band.
One of Mary Alice's many drawings she was named principal of
30 Lubbock Senior Link
