When we moved here in 2000, Mr. Rodney Tadlock, then Principal of Newton County High School, hired me to teach English and Biblical History. I enjoyed my time at NCHS, until I retired in 2009.
Rodney Leon Tadlock was born June 11, 1954, to Leon and Cleo Tadlock of Morton, Mississippi. He has two younger sisters, Tammy, wife of Rene Osteen, and Martha, wife of Pat Smith, all residents of Morton. The Tadlock family lived out in Scott County, his father taught chemistry and physics, and his mother also worked at the Talon zipper factory.
When Rodney was in the sixth or seventh grade, his father became the high school principal and the family moved into a house on campus at Morton. Mr. Tadlock eventually became the superintendent of the Scott County School System, with Rodney’s mother as his secretary. Rodney told me his first real job was cutting the school grass with a big-wheel Yazoo push mower. He later had the job of cleaning the floors. School work got in his blood.
He said he was reared in a “God-fearing family.” He continued, “I was saved at about eleven in a revival in the Leesburg Baptist Church,” the church they attended out on the county line. When they moved to Morton, they attended the First Baptist Church. A deacon in both churches, his father took the family to church every Sunday and Wednesday. Rodney took piano and voice lessons when he was young and sang a lot in church, solos and in the youth choir which even went on tour at times.
Young Rodney attended Scott County schools, where he played basketball and baseball, was voted Mr. Morton High School, and graduated in 1972. Going on to East Central Junior College, he played basketball two years on scholarship, under Coach Joe Clark. He told me, “I strayed. At one point, my grades failed. I asked Daddy for another chance.” His parents continued to help him, and, between his sophomore year at ECJC and his junior year at State, he worked on a pipeline. He attended Mississippi State University, receiving his B.S. in Elementary Education in 1976. He went on to earn his M.Ed. from Mississippi College in 1979.
After graduation, the young teacher began his career as a fourth grade teacher at Scott Central, then at the junior high school. His next position was as assistant principal at North Scott Elementary. He then was needed to be the elementary principal and assistant high school principal, where he coached and taught math. He worked in Scott Central and North Scott for eight years, before becoming Attendance Center Principal there at the age of 28, while his father was Attendance Center Principal at Scott County.
At South Leake Elementary School, an all-black school, he was principal of first through eighth grades for four years. Just 29 years old, Mr. Tadlock was over 600 children and 35 or 50 teachers. Later, he asked the black high school principal why he had hired him. The man said he had been told by the School Board that he had to hire a white principal. Rodney declared, “I probably learned more at that job because I had to.” Leaving there, he was persuaded to serve as Principal of Lake Middle School, where he stayed seven years.
Thinking he would always be unmarried, Rodney Tadlock did not yet know what God had in store for him. The story moves to the life of one Venita Ezell Lewis, born October 4, 1955, in Union, Mississippi, to Charles and Mildred Ezell. A Union High School, East Central Junior College, and Mississippi State University graduate, Venita, an elementary school teacher, was married to Bruce Lewis and was the mother of two boys, Wes, 15, and Sam, 22 months old. In 1990, Venita suddenly became a widow, as her husband Bruce died of a heart attack at the age of 36. They had been married 17 years.
Rodney and Venita knew each other, having met at East Central. They were casual friends, seeing each other at the Neshoba County Fair, at ball games, etc. Later, circumstances brought Venita and Rodney together and they began dating. After about a year, they married on March 8, 1992. Rodney told Venita her boys were enough, but the Lord had other plans and their twins, Claire and Kelsey, were born August 12, 1993.
Claire is now Mrs. Web Floyd, teaching ninth grade English at McLauren High School. Kelsey is a Registered Nurse, presently working in the Emergency Room at Blair Batson, while she studies to become a Nurse Practitioner for Pediatric Acute Care. Kelsey plans to marry Blake Edmonson from Brandon in May.
Wes Lewis, who runs a cabinet shop in Brandon, is married to Laura Thornton, a teacher at NCES. Their children are Erin, an R.N. married to Chancy Fanguy, and Nathan, who is in the Marines. Sam Lewis runs Lewis Pools and Construction, and is married to Traci Harrison, also an R.N., from Scott County. They have two boys, Tatum, two, and Tyce, eight months.
Venita taught first grade at Sebastopol, fifth grade at Union, and second grade at Lake before moving to Newton County High School. By that time in 1995, the Newton County schools had been consolidated and the high school had moved into a new building and campus, with the new principal being Mr. Rodney Tadlock. He had a new wife, four children and a new job!
He told me, “We were very fortunate. At County, we had good bosses and a good School Board. We had good kids. I loved the students, the ‘at-school’ part—holding yourself and teachers and students accountable was something we thrived on.” At one point, during his time there, he coined the exclamation, “It’s a great day to be a Cougar!”
In 2006, Mr. Tadlock began work at the Central Office as Assistant Superintendent. After 1½ years he then ran for the office of superintendent but was not elected. In January of 2007 he began a position at the Choctaw Tribal Schools as a seventh and eighth grade principal, where he worked for 5½ years. After 37 years, deciding it was time to go home, he retired.
She told me of having been “saved” in Vacation Bible School when she was nine or ten years old at New Ireland Baptist Church. The Tadlocks have been members of Clarke-Venable Baptist Church since the girls were about four. Venita told me, “I have a group of church family, sister friends that are unbelievable, and our families are amazing.” These kinds of relationships become so important in situations as in 2007 when Claire was hit by a car at Orange Beach, and when in February 2015, Venita got sick with breast cancer. The Tadlocks told me, “Things change. You realize we’re not going to always be here for one another. But we don’t dwell on it.”
The Tadlocks are “empty-nesters,” but are enjoying their quiet life down on Chapel Hill Road. Mr. Tadlock told me, “The Good Lord saved my soul, and that woman there saved my life. We’ve been really, really blessed, in every way we can be blessed!”
Live for Jesus! He’s coming soon!
You may contact me at lagnesrussell@gmail.com or 601-635-3282.
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