In 1945, OnaMae Brown Worden was the first football queen in Friendswood ISD history. During her crowning at halftime on the football field, a dog fight broke out.
As the story goes, much of the crowd missed the historical coronation as they moved to separate the stray dogs.
The anecdote is one of many chronicled at the Friendswood School Museum, which opened at what was formerly an old junior high school—the first building in the district—with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Oct. 20.
“I had been thinking, ‘What a nice gift that would be for our community if we could have a museum,’” FISD Superintendent Trish Hanks said. “Maybe we could have a couple of classrooms [at the old junior high school] to make a museum—maybe two or three, maybe four classrooms.”
Hanks said the idea took shape more than five years ago when she visited a school museum at another school district. She continued to tour other museums and meet with curators to develop her vision for FISD’s museum.
Several years later and with the old junior high school vacant, Hanks asked the school board to allocate the building for the museum.
After the board approved the request in 2014, a team of volunteers was assembled to sort through items left behind by the late Myrlene Kennedy, a former administrator who had collected FISD memorabilia spanning a 55-year history.
Cheryl Bouillion, an FISD graduate, took the lead on the project as one of about a dozen volunteers.
“We just sat and sorted through old pictures [and other items],” Bouillion said. “Of course, we enjoyed it. We talked to each other and brought up old memories. We had a lot of fun doing it.”
The most challenging part of the project was deciding which items to display. With only four classrooms to showcase FISD’s history, Bouillion said they had to make tough calls.
“I think the one common denominator we all had was the love we have for the school and for the items we were going through,” Bouillion said. “We didn’t want to throw away anything.”
Hanks said the volunteers put in hundreds of hours on the project, organizing items, transporting them to the site and setting up the rooms. As people began to see the museum take shape, more memorabilia poured in.
“[The volunteers] put in so many hours and so much love into that,” Hanks said. “Once the word got out, all kinds of other people brought in things that they had in their closets—old letterman jackets, prom dresses, just all kinds of things.”
Although FISD’s 77-year history is archived in four classrooms, the museum anticipates it could add up to eight more rooms.
“The school has so much support and such a connection from people in the community,” Hanks said.
