October 14, 2024 – As we celebrate National Principals Month, Margaret Bland McKissick-Larry sits atop the list. McKissick-Larry, 85, is the longest-serving educator (64 years) in legacy Memphis City Schools and Memphis-Shelby County Schools. 

Principal of Avon Lenox High School since 1994, Mrs. McKissick-Larry is an advocate for Exceptional Children. At Avon Lenox, she works with young adults with special needs, helping them to transition from the school system to work and independent living. 

Mrs. McKissick-Larry, a native of North Memphis, graduated from Douglass High School and received her Bachelor’s in Elementary Education/Special Education from LeMoyne-Owen College, Memphis’ only HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). She furthered her teacher training with a Master’s from then-Memphis State University.

She began her teaching career in 1960 at Georgia Avenue Elementary School on Mississippi Boulevard in South Memphis. Back then, Georgia Avenue was brand new. It’s since been closed.

In 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to support the sanitation workers’ struggle for equal pay and safer working conditions, McKissick was teaching at Lincoln Junior High, located in an impoverished Black community in South Memphis. Lincoln Junior High has since closed. (In 2023, The Works Inc., a non-profit community development corporation in South Memphis, announced that a new subdivision for at least 30 families will be built on the land that formerly was home to Lincoln at 667 Richmond Ave.)

In a 2018 interview with “We Are Memphis” she said, “I love what I do and believe I made a difference in the lives of a lot of kids. I would say to young educators that there is hope. We have a lot of work to do. It’s our responsibility to prepare our children.”