Richard Alvis Marsh

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm going to give it its full due. There's a man named Richard Alvis Marsh, born in Kentucky on October 7, 1845, and the marker finds him at the end of a life that had already taken him through a military career, a journalism career, and then, finally, to the place where he'd leave his real mark. He died August 14, 1917, and by then he had remade something that most folks had simply decided to leave broken.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. He arrived in San Antonio in 1874, and six years later he made his way to Fort Ringgold, out in Rio Grande City, to teach the children of that fort. Now, you might think that's where the story settles in and gets comfortable.

It does not. What Marsh found when he looked beyond the fort's walls was an educational situation for children of Mexican descent that he could only describe as particularly substandard. That word is in the marker.

Particularly. Whoever carved those words wanted you to understand this wasn't just a little rough around the edges. It was something that had been neglected, and Marsh felt that in his bones.

Here's where the story turns. Another man might have noted it, shaken his head, and gone back inside. Marsh devoted the rest of his life to it.

First, he became a traveling teacher, moving from ranch school to ranch school across the area, carrying education out to where the system hadn't bothered to reach. Then, in 1902, he became Hidalgo County Superintendent of Schools, and he held that position until 1914, and in that time he worked to significantly upgrade the area's public school system. A Kentucky native who arrived in San Antonio, made it to the Rio Grande Valley, and decided that the children he found there deserved better.

That's what the marker says. That's what Richard Alvis Marsh did.

What the marker says

(October 7, 1845 - August 14, 1917) Kentucky native Richard A. Marsh had a notable military and journalism career before distinguishing himself as an educator in the Rio Grande Valley. He arrived in San Antonio in 1874 then left for Fort Ringgold (Rio Grande City) in 1880 to teach the fort's children. Disheartened by the particularly substandard educational facilities available to children of Mexican descent, Marsh devoted the rest of his life, first as a traveling teacher for area ranch schools and later as Hidalgo County Superintendent of Schools (1902-1914), to significantly upgrade the area's public school system. (1993)