Teacher brings history to life
Civil War buff to use prize money for documentary

Pensacola News Journal
Monday, October 20, 2003
By Marcia Baris-Sanders
News Journal correspondent

Fourth-grade Bagdad Elementary School teacher Lisa Culpepper Turner always has been a history buff. She has gone to Civil War sites around the country and is a member of the Bagdad Village Preservation Association.

Now Turner has the chance to make history come alive for her students.

Bagdad Elementary School teacher Lisa Culpepper Turner, with some
of her students, displays her $2,000 check from financial company
ING in its national Education Unsung Heroes program.

She won $2,000 from financial services company ING in its national Education's Unsung Heroes Awards program. Turner also could get $5,000, $10,000 or $25,000 more if ING chooses her as one of the top three winners.

Turner will use the money to stock a costume closet and clothe students and teachers for a video history of Bagdad. The video will be used at the school and possibly the Bagdad Village Preservation Association.

"Bagdad History: From Lumber to Dumplings" is what she plans to call the documentary.

"History is so hard to teach out of a textbook; you've got to see the visual," Turner said.

"We've always done a little walking tour of Bagdad. There's one antebellum home there. Civil War solders were camped in it, and they wrote on the wall," Turner said.

The school also has celebrated colonial days, where students dress in costumes, make foods, prepare crafts and play games of the period.

"I've always had this idea in the back of my mind. We want to use some of the students with it, playing some of the parts or writing parts of it."

The video will be filmed at various historical landmarks in Bagdad.

"My vision is to have somebody play a character and tell about that landmark," Turner said.

Joseph Forsyth, owner of the town's first lumber mill, will be one of the stars of the video. A Bagdad native, Turner has heard stories about Forsyth since she was a child. His body is in the Bagdad Cemetery, and legend says he was buried standing up so he could see his mill.

"Everybody worked for the lumber mill. Most of the houses in Bagdad were built by the lumber mill. They sent lumber all over the world," Turner said.

The mill closed in 1939 after 111 years of operation and was taken apart to be used in the war effort.

Boat construction was the next big business in Bagdad. Turner tells the story about how townspeople burned a Civil War gunboat being built there and sunk the dock before Union troops could use them.

In the last two decades, a new business has sprouted in Bagdad - Mary B's biscuits. The newest area business completes the historical circle.

Bagdad Elementary principal Rod Gracey says Turner is an "outstanding educator."

"She loves for her children to be actively involved in their education process," he said. "I feel that children retain knowledge a whole lot better if they're learning by actually doing it and have a greater appreciation for it."

© 2003, Pensacola News Journal

Culpepper Ancestry. Lisa is the daughter of Doyle Winston Culpepper, son of Elijah Clark Culpepper.