{"id":19423,"date":"2013-02-04T17:00:55","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T22:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=19423"},"modified":"2013-02-04T17:00:55","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T22:00:55","slug":"tampa-native-st-pete-educator-76-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=19423","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Native, St. Pete Educator, 76, Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Tampa native, who spent his professional years as an educator in Pinellas County, died Friday in St. Petersburg. <strong>Vyrle Davis<\/strong> was 76 years old.<\/p>\n<p>In 2004, <strong>Mr. Davis <\/strong>was diagnosed with Parkinson disease. He was eventually bound to a wheelchair.<\/p>\n<p>The graduate of Florida A&amp;M University followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and mother as teachers. His grandfather founded the first school for Black children in Jackson County and his mother taught Black students in a one-room schoolhouse in Citrus Park.<\/p>\n<p>His first assignment as a teacher was at 16th St. Elementary and Junior High School (now John Hopkins Middle School). This is the same year he married the former <strong>Mozell Reese.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He became assistant principal in 1971 at Gibbs High School, where he impacted the lives of students for 2 years.<\/p>\n<p>When he became principal of St. Petersburg High School in 1973, <strong>Davis <\/strong>received numerous threats and racist phone calls. He never backed down from those who made verbal threats. He was the principal until 1983.<\/p>\n<p>He continued to climb the ladder, becoming Operations Director for Pinellas County Schools in 1983 and served in that position until 1986. He then became the first African-American in Pinellas County to serve as Area Superintendent, holding this position until 1995.<\/p>\n<p>In an effort to provide financial support to high achieving African-American students, he founded Ebony Scholars in 1984.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mr. Davis <\/strong>was not only an educator, but a community activist, too. He founded organizations that would advance the political causes of African-Americans. He co-founded African-American Voters Registration and Education Committee in 1996 and founded Concerned Organizations for Quality Education for Black Students in 1998.<\/p>\n<p>He has numerous awards and commendations.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to <strong>Mrs.<\/strong> <strong>Davis, Mr. Davis<\/strong> is also survived by 2 daughters, <strong>Desiree Green <\/strong>and <strong>Celeste Davis.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A memorial service and wake for Mr. Davis will be held Friday, February 8, 2013, 4-6 p. m. at St. Petersburg High School. The Saturday service will be held at First Unity Church, Downtown St. Pete, at 11 a. m. Creal Funeral Home of St. Petersburg is handling the arrangements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Tampa native, who spent his professional years as an educator in Pinellas County, died Friday in St. Petersburg. Vyrle Davis was 76 years old. In 2004, Mr. Davis was diagnosed with Parkinson disease. He was eventually bound to a wheelchair. The graduate of Florida A&amp;M University followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}