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Webster School is monument to Buchanan
Once again we’re indebted to Webster historian Joe Rhinehart for making sure we set the record straight.
In our sadness at the community’s loss of a great man, we neglected to pass along to our readers the fact that former Superintendent Paul Buchanan will always have a monument in Jackson County – the old Webster School building, which was dedicated in November 2001 as the R. Paul Buchanan Building in honor of the man who was principal during its construction.
“The tributes that your paper and (Buchanan’s) friends paid him failed to name his most visible and permanent achievement – the Webster School itself,” wrote Joe in a letter to the newsroom.
Joe was in elementary school at Webster when Buchanan was principal there, and he recalls the affection and esteem the school’s staff had for him. Joe remembers that the teachers got together and bought Buchanan a watch when he left Webster in 1944 to join the Navy and fight in World War II.
 That same widespread regard for Buchanan’s contributions to Webster and its school led Joe and his fellow members of the Webster Historical Society to petition Southwestern Child Development Commission, the owner of the former Webster School building, to name the facility for the man who had done so much to make the school a reality.
“When Paul Buchanan arrived at the Webster School in 1936, the Works Progress Administration was preparing to build the new school,” Joe said.
“Buchanan personally took over the design and direction of its construction and oversaw the building of a school that is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and noted as one of the most elaborate WPA school buildings in the United States,” Joe wrote.
The school was named in Buchanan’s honor more than three years before his death. Joe and members of the historical society surprised the retired educator with the honor by including it in a Veteran’s Day 2001 ceremony at the Webster School’s World War II monument.
Buchanan was invited to participate in a rededication of the marker, which honors the 11 students who gave their lives and the many others who served their country during the global conflict.
“Mr. Paul Buchanan is the standard against whom all future teachers, principals and superintendents in this school system will be measured,” Joe wrote. “Today a marker stands beside the Webster School, which will always be a monument to a man whose contributions to Jackson County and its people can never be listed.”
That’s a sentiment shared by current Superintendent Sue Nations, who said her goal was to be the kind of education leader that Buchanan was.
“People talk of Mr. Buchanan as a visionary leader who was always out in the schools – he was the epitome of a good administrator.”
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