FREDERICKTOWN — A large plaque with the picture of longtime influential teacher, coach and principal Roy McKinley will have an honored place in the lobby of the new Fredericktown High School. This testimonial for McKinley has been in the making for nearly a year as the committee made plans and raised money for the project.
The plaque was presented to the school during the school board meeting Tuesday evening, the last meeting that will be held in what is now the Fredericktown Middle School on Taylor Street. A scattering of students from the McKinley years attended the meeting and witnessed the ceremony.
Children of Roy and Pauline McKinley — Nancy McKinley Dunbar and David McKinley — came to Fredericktown to participate in the celebration.
Nancy McKinley regaled the audience with recollections of growing up in Fredericktown as the daughter of Roy McKinley. David, who is younger, tall and looks much like his father, has fewer recollections of life in Fredericktown, but talked about his father and read a letter from Joe McDaniel, a Fredericktown athlete and later college athlete and longtime coach. In the letter McDaniel said McKinley was a major influence in his life and on his career. The McKinley family left Fredericktown in 1952, when Nancy was a fifth-grader, moving to Coshocton where McKinley served as superintendent of schools.
Another student and athlete, Earl Bechtel of Fredericktown, who is also a member of the committee which created the plaque, related to the audience the influence McKinley had on his life.
A copy of a booklet on the life story of Roy McKinley was presented to the Fredericktown Historical Society and to the Fredericktown school library. A booklet, titled “Footprints of Roy McKinley,” has also been compiled from stories by students of McKinley, and was available at the meeting.
The plaque was made by prisoners at the Mansfield Reformatory. To preserve the legacy of the old building, which is scheduled for demolition, the facing of wood from the front of the stage was used to make the frame for the plaque.
Superintendent of Fredericktown Schools, Dan Humphrey, said several things from the old high school will be incorporated in the new high school that will be opening this fall.
