The “Book Lady,” a longtime Wildcat football coach and more than a dozen other educators and staff of the Meridian Public School District were honored Tuesday during an afternoon retirement tea held at Meridian High School’s multipurpose building.

The group of educators and school district staff were awarded plaques for their years of service to Meridian Public Schools and were treated to refreshments along with their families.

Eloise Howard, a teacher assistant at Poplar Springs Elementary School, is retiring after 44 years working in education, including the last 41 with Meridian city schools.

“I started off as a P.E. coach at Witherspoon and later went into the classroom,” she said.

After the district closed the 120-year-old Witherspoon Elementary School in 2009, Howard moved to Poplar Springs Elementary School, where she has worked as a teacher assistant in various grades for the past 14 years.

“I have taught so many babies and raised so many teachers,” she joked of her four decades in the district.

Howard said her retirement plans include working around her house and yard, as well as doing some traveling.

Michael “Chico” Brooks was surrounded by family as he retired from Meridian High’s child nutrition department after more than two and a half decades with the district.

A 1975 MHS graduate and a coach for the football, baseball and basketball teams for the past 52 years, Brooks said he still plans to come back and assist the football team.

Sheila Radcliffe, the district’s early literacy coordinator, is retiring after 21 years with Meridian Public Schools plus another five years at previous school districts.

Known affectionately by the students as the “Book Lady,” Radcliffe often visited elementary campuses in the Wildcat Wagon, a brightly painted school bus that promotes literacy, to hand out free books to students.

Radcliffe said she will only have the summer to relax because she is heading back to the classroom in the fall, joining the staff at Lamar Elementary School.

Others honored at the retirement tea on Tuesday were Mary Jane Pritchett, a teacher assistant at Oakland Heights Elementary School; Bonnie Opel, who worked in gifted education at Parkview Elementary School; Sandra White, who works in child nutrition at Parkview; Camilla Heath Davis, academic counselor at Parkview; Betty Spells, a first grade teacher at Parkview; Tia Brewster, assistant to the director & bookkeeper in Federal Programs; Assistant Superintendent Charlotte Young; Sylvia Holliday, cafeteria manager at Poplar Springs Elementary; Melanie Baker Floyd, a kindergarten teacher at Poplar Springs; LaNelle Griffith, who teaches second and third grade at Marion Park School; Virginia Naylor, a teacher assistant at Crestwood Elementary School; Tony Davidson, who works in Central Operations; and Joyce Barnes and Billy O. Hines, who both work in the Transportation Department.

The Meridian Public School District Foundation for Educational Excellence received a $1,500 grant from the Community Foundation of East Mississippi in April to help fund Tuesday’s retirement tea for teachers and staff.