Konstantin Vengerowsky/Clarendon Citizen
LMA’s first headmaster remains passionate educator
On any given morning you can find Quillon Curtis Lee sitting on the bench at the entrance to Laurence Manning Academy greeting students. An educator for nearly four decades, Lee has been a quiet leader of the school since its opening in 1972.
“Mr. Lee is one of the most professional and dedicated educators I have met in my 20 years in the field,” said current LMA Headmaster Dr. Spencer Jordan. “He is so concerned with finding potential in every student while trying to keep his students motivated. He is a role model for all educators.”
With a few career changes in between, Lee, 77, has been a teacher for nearly 40 years.
Born on a farm just north of Manning to Quillon and Eva Lee, he said that he really enjoyed being out in the fields. The family had 200 acres and grew everything from corn and soybeans to tobacco. He remembers plowing with mules and wagons.
It wasn’t until high school, though, that Lee discovered his true passion - math.
“I heard in advance that you could do math with letters, and I couldn’t wait to try it,” he said.
Lee credits Mrs. Julie Lesesne, a math teacher at Manning High School, for being a role model for his future profession.
“I thought she was one of the greatest teachers I ever had,” he said.
Lee attends the Clarendon Baptist Church in Alcolu, where he met his wife of 57 years, Mary Frances Lee.
He graduated from Manning High School in 1950 and received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering from Clemson University and a master’s in mathematics from the University of South Carolina. He also took a few graduate courses at Duke University.
Lee said his path to education was somewhat predetermined.
Upon graduating from Clemson (a military school back then), he was a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and was assigned as an instructor at Aberdeen Proving Ground, near Aberdeen, Maryland. He served as a Lieutenant in the United States Army Ordnance Corps.
“I chose to teach math because I had an engineering degree and I really enjoyed the subject,” he said.
During his career Lee has also taught electronics, radar, physics and several other sciences. After being discharged from the military, he was an instructor at American University’s branch at Shaw Air Force Base. His other teaching jobs included USC Sumter and Central Carolina Technical College, where he served as Dean of Instruction (today called Vice President of Academic Affairs).
In 1972, Lee was offered the job of being LMA’s first headmaster as well as a part-time math teacher. He took on LMA from its beginnings as a small private school with 300 students to more than 1,000 today. Around 1978, he left LMA to give farming a shot. But it was just a few years before he was back into teaching. He taught at Manning High School for a few years before returning to LMA in 1987. He left again in the early 1990s to try out another profession.
“I tried out business for a while,” he said.
In 2000 Lee returned to LMA and has been with the school ever since. He is not planning on anymore career changes. “As long as my health stays the same,” he said.
Lee said that what he enjoys most about teaching are the students.
“The interaction with them makes me feel more optimistic about life,” Lee said. “And it makes me feel younger.”
And that relationship is mutual.
“He’s always happy and there’s not a single question about math that he can’t answer,” Jeet Sandhu, a recent LMA graduate said.
Kristen Hubbard, another recent graduate had Lee as a teacher for all four years of high school.
“Not only is he a good teacher but he is also a friend to all the students,” Hubbard said.
Lee has passed on his love of LMA to future generations. Four of his children, 17 grandchildren, and three of his great-grandchildren either attended or are attending LMA.
“I know that Mr. Lee loves Laurence Manning. The proof is his commitment from 1972 till today,” said Jordan.
LMA’s lower school building was dedicated to Lee with a plaque in 2008.
