Services Today for Educator Who Spent 3 Decades in Duval County’s Schools He Was Known As a No-Nonsense Disciplinarian.

By JESSIE-LYNNE KERR

A funeral will be held today for longtime Duval County educator J. Emory Trawick, remembered as helping shape thousands of lives as a teacher and principal.

Mr. Trawick spent three decades in Duval County public schools. He died Saturday of cancer at age 59.

The funeral will be at 11 a.m. at Arlington Assembly of God Church, 88 N. Arlington Road.

A native of Panama City, Mr. Trawick graduated from Englewood High School before earning a bachelor’s degree at a college in Missouri. He later earned a master’s degree. He began his career in education in 1969 as an elementary school physical education teacher.

When Sandalwood Junior-Senior High School opened as Florida’s biggest school under one roof in the fall of 1971, Mr. Trawick was hired as a PE teacher. Three months later, he was named dean of boys and eventually advanced to athletic director, junior high vice principal and associate principal.

He moved to J.E.B. Stuart Junior High as principal from 1987 to 1989, at which time he returned to Sandalwood as principal.

During Mr. Trawick’s tenure at Sandalwood, the school consistently won academic competitions regionally and nationally, and Sandalwood was named a model school. Mr. Trawick became known as a no-nonsense disciplinarian who showed compassion. He brought in police drug-sniffing dogs to look for contraband and was a proponent of installing a police substation at the school.

“Emory was a great principal and a great leader,” recalled Irvine Early, who worked with him for many years before retiring in 1992. Early said Mr. Trawick’s motto was that students have a right to learn and teachers have a right to teach and for that to happen, “you have to have an atmosphere where education can thrive.”

Not only did Mr. Trawick insist in a good teaching and learning environment inside the school, he was a stickler for keeping the campus clean, Early said.

In June 1994, Mr. Trawick was named principal of Forrest High School. His career came to an abrupt end when a half-dozen teachers filed sexual harassment complaints accusing him of hugging them against their wishes. The state recommended suspending his teaching certificate for two years and the School Board fired him in February 1997.

Even then, former School Board Chairman Billy Parker said Mr. Trawick was “probably one of the top three secondary school principals in Duval County.”

Mr. Trawick is survived by his wife, Wanda; a son, John Troy Trawick of Jacksonville; a daughter, Katrina Trawick Phillips of Jacksonville; a stepson, Daniel Wynne of Jacksonville; a stepdaughter, Memorie Stastny of Jacksonville; two brothers, Jefferson Davis Trawick Jr. of Ocala and Coy William Trawick Sr. of Jacksonville; a sister, Sandra Keuther of Mahtomedi, Minn.; and five grandchildren.

Memorials may be made to Community Hospice of Northeast Florida, 4266 Sunbeam Road, Jacksonville, FL 32257.jessie- lynne.kerr@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4374