Edwinna Edwards always wanted her name pronounced just as it was spelled.
“It has two Ns in it, because I’m a winner,” she joked last year when The E-T interviewed her for her 95th birthday.
If there ever was a winner, it was the lifelong educator and innovator Edwinna Edwards.
She was the first person to bring computers into the classroom in Indianola.
In fact, she was laughed at the first time she had Indianola Academy invest in IBM computers for the elementary school, she said.
She didn’t set out to be a teacher at first.
“I majored in getting out of here,” Edwards said, with a laugh last year.
But of course, that’s what she did for decades, and she was great at her job.
By 1973, Edwards had taken over as principal of the elementary school at IA. She would serve in that position for 21 years, until her retirement in 1994.
After retiring from IA at the age of 70, she went to work for a year for IBM as a consultant.
The next year, she returned to Sunflower County and took a job at Mississippi Delta Community College, where she worked for the better part of two decades.
Her last job was working with the Sunflower County Library System, but a major surgery at the age of 91 cut that short.
At 95, last spring, Edwards was still tutoring students at her home in Indianola.
Mayor Steve Rosenthal presented her with a proclamation in 2019 declaring March 16 Educator Edwinna Edwards Day.
Her birthday wish, at 95?
“I would love to see every student I ever taught,” she said. “That’s impossible, I know. But you know, some do come back and tell me how much they enjoyed it.”
She was a trailblazer, ahead of her time. She touched the lives of thousands of students, from elementary school to the college level.
Edwinna Edwards.
Forever a winner.
