Board president initiates district growth
Board president initiates district growth
Written by Pamela Stephenson Friday, 07 July 2006
Education has been a priority in the Pflugerville community since the early families settled the area in the 1840s. A resident of Pflugerville for more than eight decades, Theodor Timmerman, Jr., had a significant impact on the state of education in Pflugerville for more than twenty years.
During World War I, Timmerman’s parents moved to their Pflugerville farm from Hutto saying that Hutto was not a place for Germans during the war. Timmerman was born on the farm on the outskirts of Pflugerville and has farmed the area all his life, mostly growing cotton and corn.
“At one time they said I grew 10% of the cotton that went through the gin,” Timmerman said, “and I grew 1% of the cotton in the county.”
Timmerman attended school in Pflugerville. He remembers that school began well into September so the kids could work in the fields to harvest the crops.
“We didn’t have spring breaks and long Christmas holidays,” Timmerman said.
In 1968, he began serving on the Pflugerville Independent School District Board of Trustees. At this time Pflugerville had only one school located where Timmerman Elementary on Pecan St. is today.
During his 21-year tenure, which included 10 years as board president, the district began to grow. Timmerman recalls that the focus of the board was overseeing the passage of bonds to build new schools. He tells that he traveled to New York eight times to obtain bond money.
Pflugerville High School opened in 1973 followed by Pflugerville Elementary in 1978. The first school west of IH 35 was Parmer Lane Elementary in 1982. When Timmerman left in 1986, Pflugerville Middle School and Northwest Elementary had been added.
Pflugerville ISD now boasts 25 schools and serves more than 18,000 students. PISD honored the man in 1987 for his dedication and commitment to education by naming an elementary school in his honor, Timmerman Elementary on Pecan St.
More on education in Pflugerville will be included in the upcoming publication of oral histories, Pflugerville: A Heritage to Remember, scheduled for release in Fall 2006.
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