Martha Marshall

Longtime Cabot teacher to be honored at banquet

Martha Marshall said her parents were passionate about her education. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas, a master’s degree from the University of Alaska and a doctorate from the University of Mississippi. She graduated from Cabot High School, where she has taught for years.
Martha Marshall said her parents were passionate about her education. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas, a master’s degree from the University of Alaska and a doctorate from the University of Mississippi. She graduated from Cabot High School, where she has taught for years.

Education, hard work and generosity are three of the lessons Hershell Ray passed on to his children. His daughter Martha Marshall has devoted her life to teaching students, most recently running the work program Jobs for America’s Graduates and the internship program at Cabot High School.

Marshall, who is celebrating her 46th year in education, will be this year’s honoree for the Cabot Scholarship Foundation Roast and Toast Banquet on March 10.

A Cabot native, Marshall graduated from Cabot High School in 1962. She said neither of her parents had a high-school education, and it was important to them that she stay in school.

“My parents didn’t have an opportunity to get an education,” she said. “Neither one of them went above the eighth grade. … That’s the reason all of my life it was drilled into my head to ‘get all of the education you can get. Get all of the education, and get a good job.’”

Marshall’s father was a carpenter, and Marshall said he was a “self-made man.” He made $25 per week in Cabot when he found out he could make $250 per week in Fairbanks, Alaska. He would go to Alaska for a few months at a time, live in a camper and save money to support his family.

“A girlfriend I graduated high school with recently called me up, and we had lunch,” Marshall said. “Every time we get together, she would say something like, ‘Oh, Martha. You were the rich kid.’ I’ll always remind her that Momma made my clothes. She tells me, ‘Yeah, but I can remember your daddy would always give me a nickle or dime.’ It meant a lot to her. He and mom both were generous.”

When Marshall was in the sixth grade, the family moved to Alaska for a year. She said that experience opened her eyes to new ways of thinking, and she said the experience helped her learn how to welcome new people to a situation.

“I welcome new students, new teachers, whoever,” she said. “A lot of that goes back to being the new person and being aware of how that feels. I like to make people feel comfortable.”

In Alaska, Marshall had a group of friends who formed a club pertaining to a magazine titled Calling All Girls. The club met in Marshall’s father’s camper, and later, when Marshall taught fifth grade, she made it a point to connect with the girls in her class and talk to them about hygiene and other women’s topics.

The family returned to Cabot, and Marshall went on to be voted Miss Cabot High School. Her male counterpart, Mr. Cabot High School, was Tommy Marshall, her childhood sweetheart whom she would later marry.

After graduating from high school in 1962, Marshall did not waste any time in going to college.

“As soon as I graduated, I started the next month and drove every day over to [the University of Central Arkansas in Conway],” she said. “I got my 12 hours, and that fall, I went to Ouachita [Baptist University in Arkadelphia]. The next summer, I went back to UCA, and then in the fall, I went back to Ouachita.”

Marshall’s father encouraged her to transfer to the University of Arkansas for her last year of undergraduate studies so her diploma would have a more recognizable name on it. She graduated from the University of Arkansas with a bachelor’s degree in education when she was 21, three years after she graduated from high school.

Soon after graduation, Martha and Tommy got married; then the couple moved to Fairbanks.

“We got married June 1, 1965, at 2 o’clock over there at First Baptist Church [of Cabot], and by 4:30, we were driving to Alaska,” she said.

Originally, the plan was for the newlyweds to spend the summer in Alaska, where Martha’s father had gotten Tommy a job; then they would return to northwest Arkansas for Tommy to finish his degree and Martha to teach second grade in Springdale. Little did they know they would be in Alaska for four years.

Marshall’s college roommate had an aunt who lived in Fairbanks and worked as the principal of an elementary school. She met with Marshall that summer and offered her a job teaching first grade making double what she would have made in Springdale.

“She asked why I felt I needed to go back, and I said, ‘Tommy’s in the middle of his civil-engineering degree,’” Marshall said. “She said, ‘Well, they have a wonderful civil-engineering degree out here at the University of Alaska, and I need a first-grade teacher.’”

Tommy transferred to the University of Alaska, and Martha accepted the job. In the four years they lived in Fairbanks, the couple had their first two children, Peter and Susan, and Martha earned a master’s degree in education at the University of Alaska.

After four years, the couple moved back to Cabot, and Marshall has been a teacher in the Cabot School District since then, taking one year off in the mid-’80s to write her doctoral dissertation.

Marshall decided in 1980 to earn a doctorate through the University of Mississippi. For three years, she drove the four hours to the university every other weekend to attend classes during the school year.

“I would leave here at noon [on Friday] and eat my peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the car. I’d get there and jump out to get to my class that went from 4-6:30. I had another class from 7-9:30. I’d go fall out at the hotel room. I’d get up Saturday morning and had one class from 9 to noon, the other class from noon to 3. I’d get in the car at 3 and get home at 7, and then I’d get up at 4:30 on Sunday morning to type up my notes. Then, we’d get the kids up — for some reason it was important to get them to church — and we never missed. Then it would be Monday, and I was back in school teaching,” she said. “I also lived [in Mississippi] for three summers.”

In the spring of 1984, Marshall got a call from her academic adviser at Ole Miss asking if she would get that dissertation done.

“To be truthful, I think I would have stayed ABD — all but dissertation — if he hadn’t called,” she said. “There was no time. I had two babies — Stephen was born in October 1984, and Sarah was born in December 1982 — plus two teenagers.”

With her adviser’s prodding, Marshall finished her dissertation and walked through graduation ceremonies in May 1986. She said she enjoyed doing her schoolwork, and she still loves teaching.

In her years at Cabot High School, Marshall has transformed the work program. She teaches JAG — Jobs for America’s Graduates — and an internship class. Her students work outside of the school to gain real-world experience, and she was named Outstanding JAG Specialist in 2013.

Marshall also sponsors the Cabot High School Junior Civitan Club, which has 60 members and runs two businesses — Miss Martha’s Pine Hill Cottage Bed & Breakfast and Dr. Martha Marshall’s Hypnotherapy Success.

Marshall will be roasted by Doug Erwin, Steven Blackwood and Jane Balgavy at this year’s Cabot Scholarship Foundation Roast and Toast Banquet. It will begin at at 7 p.m. March 10 in the Cabot Junior High North Cafeteria.

The Cabot Scholarship Foundation was formed in 1992 by the Cabot Centennial Committee. Last year, the foundation awarded 101 scholarships totaling $105,725. The Roast and Toast Banquet is the organization’s only fundraising event.

Individual tickets are $30, and a table for eight costs $240. Tickets are available for purchase at the Cabot High School office and from John C. Thompson, Nina Butler, Fred Campbell, Carole Jones, Stephen Tipton, Mike Verkler and Angela Wallace.

Staff writer Angela Spencer can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or aspencer@arkansasonline.com.

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