Longtime educator returns to newspaper roots
Read all about it! Tim Crow has now joined the Taylor Press as a weekly columnist.
After 40 years with the Taylor Independent School District working as everything from a teacher and principal to its historian and resident teller of tales, the longtime Duck retired in April.
Now, almost a month to the day after his departure from the halls of academia, the community will still get to enjoy all the great stories Crow has to share about the history of Taylor in his new column “Our Town,” which will run in the weekend edition of the newspaper.
It’s not Crow’s first time working with the Press. In the 1970s, he was a top mail carrier when the paper was still known as the Taylor Daily Press.
“I’m very proud to be from Taylor,” Crow said. “I’m also a storyteller and I especially love telling stories about our unique heritage and the amazing people who have called Taylor home. In this column, I plan to share little-known, but hopefully interesting, stories about our town that readers will enjoy and want to share with others.”
Crow loves writing and speaking to groups about local history. People have often told Crow he needs to write his stories down and preserve them for future generations.
“Now, I’ll be able to do what I love and share some of my favorite stories with the larger community while preserving them on the pages of our local newspaper,” Crow said.
Crow’s very first job at age 12 was working for the Taylor Daily Press as an independent businessman. However, Crow wasn’t simply a delivery boy throwing out papers on his bicycle rounds.
“I bought the newspapers and supplies from the Press, collected the monthly subscription payments from my 150 customers, which later grew to 250, and wrote a check on my personal checking account to pay my bill at the Press each month,” Crow said.
Crow learned a lot about customer service, keeping books and the importance of being dependable and on time five days a week.
“The work ethic I learned (at the Taylor Daily Press), and the importance of quality work, was amazing,” Crow said.
If a customer had a problem, he or she called Crow in the evening at home, which meant he had to stop what he was doing and take care of the issue.
“(I learned) it was much better to do it right the first time,” he said.
Crow was named outstanding carrier of the year in 1975 and 1977, receiving a $50 savings bond each time. Even then, Crow knew he wanted to be an educator, so he kept the savings bonds and at last cashed them in when he retired.
At 17, Crow graduated to a job inside the Press office, and he kept that position until he started student-teaching.
“I’m sure all that reallife training had a big part in me being named student teacher of the year in college, and campus teacher of the year twice during my teaching years in Taylor ISD,” Crow said.
Working for the Press was a unique way to prepare for a future career that lasted four decades.
And he’s not done yet, he said.
“I think it’s also very cool that, in retirement, I get to return to work for the Taylor Press where I started my first job 50 years ago,” he added.
Watch for the new column debuting May 31-June 1.
