Purity Mae Beard Martise graduated from Columbia High School in 1952, while Amelia Magee Rogers followed her exactly 50 years later.
Now both will be remembered by future generations of students thanks to a pair of memorials. On Friday CHS dedicated its new Wildcat statue in honor of Martise, who died in 2016 at 81, and a courtyard fountain in memory of Rogers, who passed away in 2017 at 33.
A large crowd gathered in the courtyard for the ceremony as relatives and friends remembered the alumnae.
Martise’s husband, Jim, recalled annual family trips back to his wife’s hometown, which always included a stop for a picture outside the high school. That tradition became a way to measure the physical growth of their offspring.
“But in retrospect it was more than their physical growth we were measuring; it was also their moral growth,” he said. “Columbia High School instilled great moral values in my wife. She passed them along to our sons, to our grandchildren.”
As a way of appreciation, the retired advertising executive from Vero Beach, Fla., had approached the school board last year about donating a Wildcat statue. His goal was to have a place where students frequented so they could take pictures. And that dream has been realized: Principal Sheila Burbridge said students were gathered around the statue snapping selfies in their caps and gowns leading up to graduation last week.
Martise himself met at the statue following the dedication to chat with Rogers’ husband, C-P Managing Editor Mark Rogers, and he had noted during the ceremony that both of their wives had something in common.
“They instilled in their husbands, neither from Columbia, a love for the city and for the high school,” Martise said.
Also during the ceremony, Stuart Magee, Amelia’s brother, spoke on behalf of her family.
“Amelia loved this school. She loved the faculty; she loved the staff. I would say she loved the strangers, but there were never any of those,” he said. “Amelia never had an acquaintance; it was always a friend.”
That came out of her strong desire to never let anyone feel left out, he said. Magee said a lot of that started with Girl Scout Troop 529, which donated the fountain in her honor along with the CHS class of 2002.
“My good friend and my pastor in Jackson, Robert Green, told me the day Amelia passed that nowhere in the Bible does it say that we cannot grieve because in our grief is where we find out that we’re human,” he said. “This has been a major impact on our family; I know it’s been a major impact on this community, but in our grief is where we realize that life is short and life is ever-passing. … If we can learn anything from this situation, it’s that Amelia always stopped to make you feel welcome. And I pray that we can go through that and start living our lives more like that.”
In fact, he said that’s why he’s a nurse today after learning compassion from his older sister.
Burbridge said when they were coming up with the idea for memorializing Rogers that an ever-running fountain fit her perfectly.
“She never stopped. She kept going,” Burbridge said. “We thought what better representation than a fountain that flows continuously.”
Pictured Above: Jim Martise shares a story about his late wife Friday at Columbia High School during a dedication ceremony for a Wildcat statue he donated in her honor as Principal Sheila Burbridge smiles in the background. | Photo by Charlie Smith
