Teacher's Crime (Contd.)

When Elementary School Teacher Minnie Lee Baskin was bulldozed into resigning (TIME, March 3), no one in rural Lakeland, Ga. thought that she would ever teach there again. Her excellent 21-year teaching record was far outweighed by her act of allowing one of her pupils, a nine-year-old white boy, to ride home in a Negro school bus because the white bus had already left and her own car had a flat tire.

The father of the white boy cooled down, signed a paper saying that Minnie Lee Baskin had meant no harm. Appealing to the State Board of Education for reinstatement, Teacher Baskin said that she had resigned under duress. But when the board put off its hearing because it had not received the proper papers, knowing Lakelanders smiled cynically.

Stung to attention by national publicity, the Atlanta Journal sent Reporter Margaret Shannon to Lakeland, printed her indignant articles flogging school Officials. With the state hearing coming up at the end of the month, local schoolmen, unwilling to face a second reproof from the press, met hurriedly with two state officials, said that Teacher Baskin could return to work with full back pay, no loss of benefits. Back in a fourth grade classroom last week, the 65-year-old teacher, who will retire with a pension in June, said: "It has been most trying for me. I'm glad it's all over."

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