Dedication Page

The children and staff of Millard Hawk Primary would like to dedicate these pages to the memory of Mr. Millard W. Hawk, for whom our building was named.

Mr. Millard W. Hawk
1904-1996

Mr. Millard Hawk was president of the Central Square School District Board of Education from 1950-1962 after having served as its first vice president from 1944-1950. He was a key figure in the creation and centralization of the Central Square Central School District in 1944. He truly valued education as the key to success and lived his life as an example for others to follow. He even helped others find that key to success, often times unknown to even his closest friends and family.

The oldest child in his family, Mr. Hawk was forced to pay for his own education after his father died. He successfully became a civil engineer. He worked as the supervising civil engineer in charge of the construction of Interstate 81. An avid reader, he could often be seen reading educational journals of engineering to increase his knowledge of the engineering field. Even after retiring at the age of 65, he continued to keep abreast of his chosen field and continued to help others.

From 1963-1965, Mr. Hawk, his wife, Thelma, and youngest son, Robert, lived in Liberia, West Africa where he shared his expertise to help build roads and water treatment plants. It was here that he paid the fees for the son of an employee to go to school, saying, "If I can educate one, I can change their entire family forever."

In the last few years of his life, Mr. Hawk maintained a relationship with the children and staff of the Millard Hawk Primary School. He visited the school in a ceremony honoring him and even had classes visit his home in Constantia. The children were delighted to be able to know the man their school was named after. After his death in 1996, his family commissioned an artist to paint a portrait of Mr. Hawk, which hangs in the front foyer of the school.