Myrtle Hurley Franklin Endowed Scholarship

Myrtle Irene Hurley decided to follow her aunt into teaching and was able to go to Sam Houston Normal Institute in 1901 for their two year course, finishing in the class of 1903. “Miss Myrtle”, as she was known to her students, taught almost every grade level and course in the school curriculum in Floresville, Wilson County, and was also for a time the principal of the high school, where she taught math and science classes, as well as English ones. She married Wiley Edward Franklin, rancher, bank cashier and later Wilson County treasurer, in 1919. She continued to be a wonderful cook, and her garden was always full of lovely iris and other flowers. After her husband and aunt’s death, she lived alone in her home, though she enjoyed having her step-daughters and their families come and visit. She was always treated with great respect by all of her former students and their families. Michael Frank and Judy Rowe Koehl both grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and moved to Huntsville when he became the pathologist at Huntsville Memorial Hospital. Both of them had the advantage of growing up in families where education was valued, and both have graduate degrees. While neither Mike nor Judy was educated at SHSU, during their years in Huntsville they have been impressed with its current emphases on teaching and on encouraging those students who are first generation college students, just as SHNI encouraged Myrtle Hurley Franklin over one hundred years ago. They also feel that preparation of the next generation of teachers is of prime importance to the future of our area, state and nation. They hope to encourage excellence in preparation among students who plan to teach, as well as to help to defray a little of the cost of that preparation