By LINDA CHION KENNEY
A school’s legacy comes in many forms, including when its first class of kindergartners reaches the milestone of high school graduation.
Such was the case this year for Richard “Dick” Stowers Elementary School in Lithia, which opened its doors for the first time for the 2009-10 school year, led by inaugural principal Catherine “Missy” Lennard, who is set to open Dorothy C. York Innovation Academy in Apollo Beach in August.
As is the tradition at Stowers, graduating high school seniors who studied at Stowers are invited back for the fifth-grade clap-out as the school year draws to a close. Youngsters holding cowbells celebrate the graduating fifth-graders as they high-five the high school seniors, who now share their affiliation as Stowers Cowboys alumni.
This year, a record number of high school graduates, dressed in caps and gowns from their respective high schools, arrived at Stowers on May 26 to celebrate the occasion. Many among the roughly 50 graduates in attendance represented the first kindergarten class at Stowers.
Among the returning graduates was Fisher Weeks, a Riverview High Class of 2022 alumnus, who said, “It’s crazy being back here with the same people I haven’t seen in years.” Crazy, he added, that “we’re all here at the same time, seeing the young kids look up to us and seeing some of the teachers we haven’t seen in years.”
Art teacher Abby Rothrock said she has been at Stowers since it opened. “These are my kindergarten babies, and it’s kind of cool to see them come full circle,” Rothrock said. “We have worked really hard to create well-rounded students, and they totally exemplify that.”
According to Hillsborough County School District officials, an estimated 13,769 seniors were set to receive their high school diplomas this year, including 204 Hillsborough Virtual School students, 233 career center students and 27 exceptional education center students.
In all, the county has 28 comprehensive high schools, which in south Hillsborough County accounted for an estimated 2,404 graduates, factoring in Riverview (560), Sumner (554), Lennard (500), East Bay (460) and Spoto (330). High schools in east Hillsborough County accounted for an estimated 2,883 graduates, factoring in Bloomingdale (576), Durant (530), Strawberry Crest (506), Plant City (500), Armwood (400) and Brandon (371). Newsome, in Lithia, accounted for the highest number of graduates countywide (750).
Collectively, these 12 southeastern Hillsborough County schools accounted for 45.4 percent of the 13,305 comprehensive high school graduates countywide.
Back at Stowers on May 26, graduates from Riverview, Newsome, Bloomingdale, Durant, Strawberry Crest and Tampa Bay Prep joined the clap-out at a school named for a man who left an indelible mark on the Greater Brandon and Greater Riverview communities.
Among his many accomplishments, Stowers, with his wife Raymetta, was instrumental in opening Brandon’s first Boys & Girls Club, named for his longtime friend, Brandon cattle rancher Bill Carey. He later turned his attention toward raising funds for the Riverview Boys & Girls Club. He later joined longtime friends and fellow philanthropists Cy and Joanne Spurlino and Joe and Ann Garcia in funding a club in Wimauma.
Stowers, founder of Stowers Funeral Home in Brandon, and later with his ties to the Southern Funeral Home in Riverview, died in 2019 at age 89.
As for the school that bears his name, “his legacy is embedded in these walls,” said Kim Urbaniak, who helped open Stowers as a fifth-grade teacher and now teaches gifted students in kindergarten through grade 5. Her son, Bryan, penned an essay that earned him a scholarship that the fifth-grade class pays for annually through its read-a-thon fundraiser. Based on a blind reading of application essays, fifth-graders select scholarship recipients, which this year included as well Olivia Zorrilla and Aiden Vittoe.
Back in 2010, Bryan’s older sister, Alyson, was asked to interview the school’s namesake for its dedication ceremony.
“They didn’t know each other,” Kim Urbaniak said, in the media center reception after the clap-out. “Mr. Stowers talked to her about being a daydreamer and about growing up and never letting go of those dreams. It was at the time that my grandfather, my daughter’s great-grandfather, was ill and passed, and Mr. Stowers just kind of stepped in to almost being a grandpa, not only to my kids but to all the kids at Stowers.”
Also in the media center, Assistant Principal Dustin Robinson, who is set to open York as an assistant principal, posed for a picture with high school graduates he first met as their second-grade teacher.
Robinson said he looks forward to being at York, a magnet school for students in pre-kindergarten through grade 8, and to help students from that perspective with their transition from fifth- to sixth-grade. As for the opportunity to work again with Lennard, “I continue to learn from her every day,” Robinson said. “Every day.”
Before the clap-out, Lennard posed with high school graduates on stage while her fifth-graders looked on in the cafeteria and multipurpose room. It’s the same stage that in 2010, her father, Earl, then Hillsborough’s superintendent of schools, joined with his lifelong friend, Dick Stowers, in the school’s dedication ceremony.
“It’s been rewarding to see an entire group of kids go from kindergarten through their senior year in high school,” Missy Lennard said. “The kids and I are both going on to new journeys.”