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Show Bybee was one of the first female principals in county L '.. r -f I By DONETA GATHERUM WEST POINT-The opportunity for Dora Bybee to become one of the first women school principals in Davis County came because of World War II. Bybee, a principal at West Point E Ie me n tary for 34 years , was originally hired to teach first grade. She was satisfied with this position. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, changed this. The male principal at West Point, convinced he would be drafted, resigned as principal. It was decided decid-ed that Bybee would be a good, temporary replacement. She could continue to teach first grade and handle administrative duties before and after school. In 1941, West Point was the smallest elementary school in the county. During the years Bybee served as principal, the school enrollment grew so large that four additions were made to the school. Finally, after 30 years as a teaching principal, the superintendent decided decid-ed West Point was large enough to have a full-time principal and a full-time full-time first grade teacher. For the last four years of her career ca-reer in education, Bybee served only as principal. "I satisfied my teaching urge by helping individual students with school work in my office. of-fice. Occasionally, I would walk down to the first grade rooms, step inside and listen to the children read," Bybee stated. Bybee's work as an elementary school administrator was very complex. com-plex. She did her administrative work before and after school while she was also handling the disciplining disciplin-ing of bus students who arrived at the school before the teachers. Bookkeeping was time-consuming time-consuming because there was no school secretary to assist with these duties. Lunch reports were the most tedious to prepare. One stormy morning the kids had to be let into the school building early. Bybee needed to complete her lunch report so it could be picked up at the start of school. She closed her office door so that she could concentrate on her paper work. When someone started knocking on her door, she decided to ignore iL The knocking persisted. She continued con-tinued to ignore it until the knock became so distracting that she decided to open the door and soundly sound-ly discipline the student who was disturbing her. As Bybee pushed the door open, Point Elementary while Bybee was serving as principal will remember the annual operetta that was performed per-formed by the entire studentbody. This activity continued for 34 consecutive con-secutive years. The program was a child's story, set to music by a professional pro-fessional and then adapted to the school population by Bybee and others. The school lunch program was started while Bybee was principal. At first, we used my office for the kitchen. The students were served in the hallways. They ate in the rooms," Bybee recalled. The addition addi-tion of a cafeteria and kitchen to the school eased some of the pressure Bybee must have felt as a teacher and principal. . According to Bybee, the attitude and behavior of the students allowed allow-ed her to perform effectively in her dual role as teacher and principal. Even though she would sometimes have as many at 40 students in her first grade class with no aides, Bybee could leave her first graders working on their own when she had to go to her office to conduct administrative ad-ministrative business. "I trained the kids to be trustworthy whenever I was called away to answer the phone or talk to an individual. They didn't let me down,' ' she said. DORA BYBEE ' she saw a little girl standing in the hallway with a bouquet of spring daffodils in her hand. The child was just delivering a lovely gift to her favorite school principal. Bybee decided the lunch report wasn't too important. Any child who attended West |