One of Nashville’s newest schools honored its namesake Thursday by planting a tree for her.
Ivanetta H. Davis Early Learning Center planted the tree on a hillside on its Bordeaux campus in memory of Ivanetta H. Davis, who served as an MNPS teacher and longtime elementary school principal.
Davis, who was 100 when she died in 2013, was also a founding charter member of the Nashville chapter of The Links, Incorporated, a national service organization that helped to put together the event.
Davis’s granddaughter, Ivanetta Davis Samuels, spoke to the audience of pre-kindergarten students, teachers, staff and Links members, saying the planting was a fitting tribute to a woman who nurtured and supported her students like the roots and branches of a tree.
“As an educator who dedicated her professional life to being a source of growth and knowledge, she loved her students,” Davis Samuels said. “She well understood the great equalizing power of love and respect. She showed both to all, especially her young students who, as a principal at Moses McKissack School, she greeted by name every morning.”
Davis Samuels and her mother also buried a time capsule containing photos, notes from friends and admirers of Davis, a “Garfield” comic strip, a Christmas ornament and other items next to the tree.
The early learning center, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, recently worked with Metro Water Services and the Nashville Tree Foundation to plant trees around the school grounds, Principal Rhiannon Wilson said.
Ivanetta H. Davis Early Learning Center is located at 1910 S. Hamilton Road in Nashville.
The former Bordeaux Early Learning Center was renamed the Ivanetta H. Davis Early Learning Center on August 19, 2016, in honor of the late, distinguished, long-time Metro Nashville Public Schools educator, community servant and former First Lady of Tennessee State University.
Davis is a legend within the walls of MNPS and is well known for her nearly 30 years of service to the students at Moses McKissack Elementary School, where she served as principal from its opening in 1954 until 1983.
