The Man in Missouri

Whenever it seems that money is the root of all good in U.S. education and that only the Federal Government can provide it. the U.S. taxpayer can consider the case of Dillard A. Mallory, a gentle man of 56 who superintends the schools of rural Buffalo, Mo. (pop. 1,700). This month Buffalo will acquire three sorely needed school buildings costing $115,000. The source of the windfall is not the town, not the state, not Uncle Sam. It is Superintendent Mallory, who personally put up the money on a yearly salary of $12,000. "People ask me why I did it," says Mallory. His answer goes back to the way education was valued in southern Missouri when he grew up on a farm with eight brothers and sisters. From a one-room school. Mallory and three brothers went on to the nearest high school ten miles away by renting a shabby room near by and living on pork and beans. While in high school, he taught grade school to pay his way. "Those were challenging days." he remembers. "Some of the children were older than I." When he at length became a much respected rural school superintendent. Mallory refused better-paying jobs with urban glamour. "I had an idea that you could work out as good a program for children here as anywhere else," he says. A "Teacherage." In 1947 the tiny Buffalo school district hit its debt limit and ran out of money. Without blinking, Mallory used his 20-year savings of $10,000 to buy a one-acre lot adjoining Buffalo High School. Leasing it to the district for $1 a year, he borrowed $32,000 on his signature, bought some surplus Army barracks, and built a school annex housing a library, cafeteria and home economics classroom. While paying off the debt with proceeds from the cafeteria and athletic events concessions, Mallory borrowed again to buy lumber from an abandoned Army hospital, used it to construct a science and industrial arts building costing $11,000. Then in 1957, to solve the housing shortage that repels teachers from rural areas, Mallory again cannibalized the Army hospital and built a $72,000 "teacherage" with apartments renting for a maximum of $60 a month. Last Installment. Down went Buffalo's teacher turnover and up went its school rating--Triple-A is the grade it gets from the state education department. In the past decade, 50 surrounding school districts have voted to be annexed by Buffalo, which now serves 1,550 students in a null area and is thus richer than ever. As a result, Buffalo in 1959 floated a $240,000 school bond issue and so improved Buffalo High School that last month the satisfied citizens voted overwhelmingly to hike the school tax by 20%. Worried about a U.S. "drift toward complacency and indifference," Mallory meanwhile used the experience of a 1960 tour of Russia to make 350 speeches all over Missouri--thus earning another $4,500 to set up a college scholarship fund for youngsters aiming to become American Government teachers. This month he will pay the last installment on his school buildings and formally turn over the deeds at commencement. Says he: "We've got to get back to greater effort on the part of the individual."

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