"School's Never Out" by Mike Brown

Milam County Historical Commission
Milam County, Texas

School's Never Out

By MIKE BROWN - Reporter Editor

Rockdale Reporter - June 13, 2013

Two-classroom, historic, rural structure still Milam landmark

They used to say Eldon Ball, retired longtime Rockdale Elementary Principal, had “chalk

dust in his veins.”

If anybody still remembers what chalk dust is, that may explain why Ball’s heart is

still at school.

You see, he lives in one.

For almost 30 years Ball and wife, Joyce, also a former longtime educator, have lived

in the former Hoyte School, a building Ball remodeled himself, doing an estimated 85

percent of the work.

Eldon Ball had 37 years in education, 25 of them as Rockdale’s elementary principal.

Joyce Ball taught for 26 years, including stints in Rockdale and Milano. She’s the

widow of Milam County legend Charlie Martin, who coached, taught and was an

administrator at Milano and Rockdale.

Project

Eldon Ball had purchased the Hoyte school many years previously but put the house

project on hold as his first wife, June, became ill then passed away.

After Eldon and Joyce married, he resurrected the long-held dream of turning the former

school into a home on the Ball property at the end of a county road near Milano.

“It had a partition down the middle, separating the two classrooms,” Eldon said. “I

told everybody it looked like a dance hall.”

The old school had 12-foot ceilings and a substantial attic. Joyce remembers climbing a

ladder, poking her head into the attic and exclaiming “we could put a dormitory up

here.”

Eldon replied softly, “oh, we’ll just add a second story.”

And that’s exactly what he did.

Good sleep

Assisted by family members, both Balls and Martins, Eldon turned the school into a

home.

In addition to the second story, the retired educator created substantial additions to

the buildings, lowered the ceilings, designated a signature breezeway—which somehow

managed to remain cool and delightful even on the muggy morning The Reporter

visited—and added his own typical touches.

School’s Never Out

“I moved a pond,” he smiles.

“People didn’t think you could move a pond, but I did, filled in one part and dug the

other part lower.”

“I remember washing rocks for him,” Joyce added. “We wanted them for the house’s

underpinning. They were all taken from the land here and some of them were petrified

wood.”

Wasn’t that an awful lot of work ?

Eldon grinned the wellknown “Ball Grin”: “Let’s just say nobody had to rock me to sleep

at night.”

Tradition

Over the past three decades the Ball “school-home” has become a meeting place for

numerous functions involving Milam County Retired Teachers. “It just seems so

appropriate to have our retired teachers gather in a former school,” Eldon said.

It’s been particularly well-remembered as the site for retired teachers’ Thanksgiving

covered-dish luncheons.

There’s also a sense of history about the house. Eldon has retained a number of

artifacts from his principal days including the desk he once sat behind and paperwork

that shows the names of every teacher at the elementary during that time.

After a tour of the schoolhouse it’s not uncommon for visitors to remark that maybe

Eldon, beloved as he was as an educator, might have missed his calling, that he should

have been an architect.

That brings a typical Eldon Ball response, an “aw shucks” grin followed by, “then I

would have made more money.”

All credit for this article goes to
Mike Brown
and the
Rockdale Reporter

Photos by Mike Brown - Rockdale Reporter

Above left: Retired principal Eldon Ball and wife Joyce, a former teacher, have lived in remodeled Hoyte school building since 1986.

Above right: Ball still has the legendary bicycle, along with the cap, that he used to
lead two decades of giant Halloween parades in Rockdale when he was elementary principal. “I still ride it to my mailbox and back,” he said.

Above left: Here’s how the Hoyte school looked before its renovation and expansion.

Above right: Window-rich dining room, designed by Ball, lets family be inside and outside at the same time.