by John D. Benedict

1922
The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago
P. 506

T.A. SEIBERT

One of the well known educators in Oklahoma is T.A. Seibert, superintendent ofthe schools at Lenapah, Nowata county. A native of Missouri, he was born inQueen City on the 31st of March, 1879, a son of H.H. and Mary J. (Morris)Seibert. The father was born in Ohio and was for many years engaged as acontractor and builder. Upon the outbreak of the Civil war he enlisted as afirst lieutenant in the Fifty-eighth Ohio Infantry and served for three yearsand three months. The mother was likewise born in Ohio and is now living onthe farm near Kibby, that state, where her husband’s death occurred in March,1914.

In the acquirement of an education T.A. Seibert attended the schools of hisnative county and later became a student in the Kirksville State Normal Schoolof Missouri and the Northwestern State Normal School of Oklahoma, having removedto this state in 1901. He was graduated from the latter institution in 1915 andthen enrolled in Phillips University, where he still continues to take coursesfrom time to time. Upon first coming to this state he secured a homestead inWoodward county and there experienced the hardships and privations of frontierlife. In addition to caring for his land he engaged in school work and he hasbeen active in educational work since 1902. In 1918 he became superintendentof schools at Lenapah, being recommended for this position by the state, and heis now active in that capacity. The district over which he is superintendent isthe largest in area in the state and he has under his control three hundred andsixty pupils. The school buildings at the present time occupy two acres of landbut in the near future an addition of seven acres will be made and the schoolwill then be developed particularly along the lines of agriculture and homeeconomics. Mr. Seibert thinks that as this is a rural community, the schoolshould function as nearly as possible in the interests of those who support it.The valuation of the district is placed at one and three-quarter milliondollars, and the buildings have cost some sixty thousand dollars. When Mr.Seibert first assumed charge of the district it comprised only fifty squaremiles but today it is twice as large. The children are brought to the schoolfrom the outlying districts in eight motor trucks. The staff is composed ofthirteen teachers with Robert A. Reed of Chicago, Illinois, as supervisor ofvocal music. Fee hand and mechanical drawing are taught the boys and Mr.Seibert’s wife is teacher of domestic science and art. She is likewiseprincipal of the high school. The art department compares favorably with anyin the state and it being Mr. Seibert’s desire to introduce class instructionin piano, violin and band, the high school now has a band and orchestra. In theline of athletics the school has won a place for itself in the state, and thefootball team has won nearly all the games played with school teams inNortheastern Oklahoma.

In 1897 was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Seibert to Miss Ruby McKenny, anative of Missouri, and to their union five children have been born: A.H.,twenty-four years of age, who is a graduate of Northwestern Teacher’s Collegeof Oklahoma, and is now a director of athletics in the above mentioned school;Annie, who is the wife of M.A. Walker, a broom manufacturer of Woodard; Frances,the wife of C.A. Beall, of Apache, this state; Pearl, who is attending theSouthern School of Photography at McMinnville, Tennessee; and Catherine, Jr.,who is a student in the high school.

Mr. Seibert has had a hard fight to bring his school up to it present highstandard and as a conscientious and progressive educator he deserves a prominentplace among the men who have contributed most to the development of Nowatacounty. There is no doubt that the teacher is one of the most important forcesin the progress of the world, and the successful teacher deserves the respectand honor of all friends of humanity. 

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