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WILLIAM T. MELTON
Vol. 3, p. 1018

There can be no reason for indirection or conjecture in determining
the value of the services of this representative and highly esteemed
citizen of Pontotoc County, who has been a resident of what is now
the State of Oklahoma from early childhood, whose ambition and self-
reliance enabled him to overcome obstacles that faced him in
attempting to acquire in a pioneer country a liberal education, and
whose success in the achievement of his desired object needs no
further voucher than the statement that since 1912 he has been the
efficient and valued incumbent of the office of county superintendent
of schools in Pontotoc, with residence in the thriving little City of
Ada, the judicial center of the county. By any manner of work that
would afford an honest means of accumulating the necessary funds with
which to continue his educational work, Mr. Melton pressed steadily
forward to the goal of his ambition, and he became one of the pioneer
teachers in the schools of the Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory,
while the passing years have witnessed his advancement to secure
vantage-place as one of the prominent, successful, and influential
factors in connection with educational affairs in this vigorous young
commonwealth. He is still a young man, with unabated ambition and
enthusiasm, and the best voucher for his effective service as a
representative of the pedagogic profession in his retention of the
important office of which he is now the incumbent, his original
election to the office of county superintendent of schools having
occurred in 1912 and the popular estimate of his administration
having been shown in his re-election in the autumn of 1914. From the
standpoint of historical interest it is pleasing to recall that Mr.
Melton had as the "hall of learning" in which he initiated his
experience as an educator, a crude log schoolhouse, it having since
been his to note with satisfaction and pride the marvelous
advancement that has been made in the educational facilities of the
same section of the now prosperous and opulent State of Oklahoma.

Mr. Melton was born at Burns, Cooke County, Texas in the year 1886,
and is a son of John R. and Lulu (BRYANT) Melton, who now reside on
their well improved farm near Sasakwa, Seminole County, Oklahoma. The
father of Mr. Melton was born and reared in Kentucky and as a young
man, about the time of the Civil war, he established his residence in
Texas, where he continued to maintain his home until 1890, when he
came with his family to Indian Territory, where he became a pioneer
settler and within the original boundaries of which he still
continued to reside.

The early educational training of him whose name initiates this
article was acquired in primitive subscription schools in Indian
Territory, where his parents established their home when he was about
four years of age. The scholastic facilities in Indian Territory were
very meager and later Mr. Melton attended high school at Paradise and
also at Bridgeport, Texas, in which latter connection he worked as
janitor, clerk in a store and other occupations, in order to earn the
money necessary for his maintenance during the completion of his
school work in the high school.
After his return to what is now the State of Oklahoma he took a
course in the Central Normal School at Edmond, and later completed an
effective supplemental course in East Central State Normal School at
Ada, his present place of residence. In 1904 Mr. Melton served his
novitiate in the pedagogic profession by assuming the position of
teacher in the pioneer log schoolhouse, in Pontotoc County, to which
reference has incidentally been made in a preceding paragraph. A
consistent estimate of his character and splendid services has been
written by one familiar with his career and the same is worthy or
reproduction in this connection:
"Mr. Melton rose rapidly in his profession, by experience and normal
training, and was for three years principal of the school at Center,
then one of the most important In Pontotoc county. For several years
he has been a recognized leader in educational thought and
advancement in this county, and he has served several terms as
president of the Pontotoc County Teachers' Association. He is a
member of the Oklahoma Educational Association and has been honored
by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in being appointed
a member of the examining committee of the State Board of Education.

At the inception of Oklahoma statehood school facilities in Pontotoc
county were still of most meager order. When the State was admitted
to the Union there came the opportunity for the educational
advancement which the people much desired, and during the first three
years after the admission of the State sixty modern school buildings
were erected in the county. There are now sixty-four organized school
districts, with a scholastic population of 9,985, and employments is
given to a corps of 161 teachers. In the five years preceding 1915
the scholastic population grew from 6,000 to the figures noted above.
The average attendance in the county schools from 1913 to 1914
increased from sixty-six to seventy-eight per cent. During the
administration of Mr. Melton as County Superintendent of Schools his
work has been an inspiration and incentive and has enlisted the
enthusiastic support of all classes of citizens, in the teachers
under his supervision and the pupils in the various schools. Within
his regime, in connection with the erection of school buildings,
special attention has been given to heating, lighting and
ventilation, and virtually all school buildings in the county are up
to the best modern standard in these important particulars. In the
town of Roff employment is given to 12 teachers and the curriculum
includes four years of high-school work. The village of Frances has
the third largest school in the county and is followed in turn by
Allen, Stonewall and smaller towns. The average length of the school
year in Pontotoc county is eight months; ten districts have recently
voted bonds for new buildings or extensions; and the standard of
teachers in the county ranks high, the major number of them having
received training in State normal schools. Under the administration
of Superintendent Melton interest in eighth-grade graduations has
been materially increased and vitalized. In 1909 there were twenty-
four such graduates and 1915 there were more than one hundred.
Superintendent Melton has created and perpetuated definite popular
interest in the modern school ideals and systems, and the teaching of
agriculture, domestic science and manual training have been
materially advanced in connection with the public school work under
his able and faithful supervision. The establishing and upbuilding of
public-school libraries has received marked attention, and there are
now in these libraries in Pontotoc County more than 8,000 volumes.
Field and track athletics have gradually taken rank with those of the
best counties in the State, and public-school pupils of the county
take a lively and helpful interest in the preparing of exhibits for
the county fair and also the state fair."

Though a man of broad and well fortified convictions concerning
economic and governmental affairs and a staunch supporter of the
cause of the democratic party, Mr. Melton has subordinated all other
interest to the demands of his chosen profession and thus has
manifested no desire to enter the turbulent current of so-called
practical politics. He is a valued and active member of the Ada
Commercial Club and both he and his wife hold membership in the
Baptist Church.

In the year 1910 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Melton to Miss
Mayme WHITE, of Center, Pontotoc County, where she had been a
successful and popular teacher in the village schools. They have one
child, Troy, who was born in 1911. Mr. Melton has two brothers and
two sisters: Samuel is a prosperous farmer near Wetumka, Hughes
County; Roland is a student in the high school at Ada; Mrs. Margaret
LACKEY resides at Nina, Arkansas, her husband being a railroad
employe; and Mrs. Nora POLK is a resident of Wetumka, Oklahoma, her
husband being an electrician by trade and vocation.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Lee Ann Collins, December 29, 1998.