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DAZE WORK: Pride goeth before the summer
Inevitably when discussion would get around to school funding, as it most often did at the Legislative Update sessions each winter, Murray Pride was always there with the perfect analogy.
“There’s only so many pieces of the pie,” he would offer in that wonderful Kentucky drawl.
It was a quite simple analogy yet the 48-year retired educator always seemed to make it new and refreshing as funding for charter, private and virtual schools have eroded public school funding in recent years.
Drawing on that logic, I remember getting a big laugh out of Murray one time as I walked past his table en route to the dessert tray at the Putnam County Community Foundation annual dinner. I leaned in to remind him quite pointedly, that there were “only so many pieces of the pie” and I was about to get mine.
I’d like to think of Murray as a friend, but really he’s an acquaintance because our paths often crossed in our professions, I see him these days because we share the same haunts -- Kroger, Walmart, McDonald’s, Legislative Update.
To his credit, Murray has stayed an active advocate for all things good about public education, even after retiring from North Putnam as superintendent in 2009 and then coming out of retirement to help save the Eminence School Corporation as superintendent there.
Interestingly, Murray still managed to get to the legislative programs on Saturday mornings even after his second retirement took hold he really no longer had any skin in the game. Yet he remained knowledgeable about various pending legislation and its effects on public education. Same is true for breakfast meetings that continue to this day with other local superintendents.
He’s also found time to be a valuable contributor to the Foundation, even earning its Spirit of Philanthropy Award a couple years back.
Now after 29 years in Putnam County, Murray and wife Sara have sold their Heritage Lake home and will be moving to Owensboro, Ky., to be closer to their son and daughter and the lure of the grandkids.
Over the past few years, Murray told the Legislative Update gathering Saturday morning he and Sara have spent enough on driving south for swim meets and volleyball, football and basketball gamers that they could have made a downpayment on a new home. But as any grandparent will attest, that’s money well spent.
Given a brief sendoff Saturday morning, Murray offered some parting advice: “Never move when you’re 81.”
Hopefully our legislators in attendance, State Rep. Beau Baird and State Sen. John Crane, can see fit to put the wheels in motion to secure a Sagamore of the Wabash for a distinguished educator and finer human being -- at least before those Kentucky Colonels get their chance.
But there are only so many pieces of Murray Pride to go around. And this time his children and grandchildren and Owensboro, Ky., are getting the lion’s share.
For 29 years we’ve had more than our share. We will miss him, no matter how you slice it.