Kénitra ES (formerly Thomas Mack Wilhoite ES) History
Opened: 1950
Closed: 1976
The Thomas Mack Wilhoite Elementary School was located at Port Lyautey in Kénitra, Morocco. The school, also known as Kénitra Elementary School, served the dependents of the US Naval Station at Port Lyautey. When the original school opened, it was housed in a converted World War II communications facility. A new school building was opened for the 1963-64 school year. An elementary student who attended the school in Kénitra suggested the name for the school. Thomas Mack Wilhoite received a Silver Star posthumously for displaying conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity during the strikes at Rabat-Sale and Port Lyautey during World War II. His citation also cited Wilhoite’s “superb airmanship and tenacious devotion to duty” in pressing home his strafing attacks. The school served students in grades one through six most years. For the 1966-67 school year, kindergarten was added. Some years the school only had grades one through five, and a few years the enrollment included grade seven. The school’s name was changed to Kénitra Elementary School in 1971.
By the 1956-57 school year there were 500 pupils in the elementary school, with twenty-one regular classroom teachers and five part-time teachers. All classes had music and physical education. Students above grade four had French since Morocco was a French-dominated country at the time. The elementary school also had a speech therapist, a special education teacher, and a librarian. A local spelling contest at the school provided a contestant for the European–North African Dependents’ Schools Contest.
The first few years there was one administrator for both the elementary school and the high school. The elementary principal for 1958-59 and 1959-60 school years was Elwin Dell. Thomas A. Millar was the principal for the next two years, followed by Earl Cartland. David Twohy was the principal for both schools for the 1966-67 school year. For the last year of the school, the administrators were principal David Bensen and assistant principal Robert Kubarek.
The school’s enrollment reached 650 during the 1958-59 school year and was between 375 and 400 for most of the sixties. The last year of the school there were 270 students in grades kindergarten through six, with eleven elementary teachers.
The school was closed in 1976.
Information from school yearbooks and online resources