And He Shall Be Leevonne (And He Shall Be a Good Man)

Mr. Leevonne Mitchell was my teacher. I graduated from Auburn High School in 1978, and he was technically and officially my Speech teacher in 10th grade. But, man, he was SO much more than that…

Recently, I was talking with some classmates about him, and we all realized that as much as we owed that man, we knew absolutely nothing about him personally. One of us remembered that he was very guarded about his private life. I didn’t know where he came from, where he went to school, if he was ever in the military, or how he ended up in Auburn. I didn’t even know anything about his family. It hurt me that as much as he did for me, I never learned more about him. Sadly, he passed away 10 years ago, and I regret that I never took the initiative to tell him how much he meant to me and how much he’d shaped me as a teacher, as a man, and as a member of humanity.

This little post will not do the man justice. There isn’t really a reasonable way to represent all of his psyche in a way that a stranger would understand in a simple tribute like this, so I’m writing this more for myself than anything else. These paragraphs reflect things that came to mind about Mr. Mitchell this week – if I’d waited a week, it would probably look different as different memories came to mind. As soon as I hit POST, I’ll start thinking of other things I’d forgotten. However, if you were a student of his and have your own memories, I would love to read about them in the Comments section for this post.

I first met Mr. Mitchell when I was in the 9th grade and one of my closest friends roped me into auditioning for the upcoming musical production of Dracula, Baby. At that time (1975), Auburn High School had no theater. We used to joke that AHS was loaded with drama, but no theater, ha ha. We were more into Sports and Music, and I was definitely all about the music. My friend Robert Cox was as much into theater as I was into music, and although I have no clue about the particulars or procedures, he and Mr. Mitchell somehow resurrected Theater at Auburn High School so that they could put on a play. The next thing I knew, I was forced into auditioning for a musical even though the last production in which I’d been involved was a stupid 6th grade courtroom play about putting “Homework” on trial. However, since I’d broken Robert’s wrist earlier that year, it was the least I could do, right?

Robert would play the lead part of Dracula and Mr. Mitchell would be the Director. Upon meeting him, my very first impression of Mr. Mitchell was that he meant business. He wasn’t mean, intimidating, or unfair, but you knew instantly not to cross this man. And now that I think about it, you just never even wanted to cross him. I auditioned for the role of Dracula’s dimwitted sidekick, Renfield, and Mr. Mitchell told me that he cast me in that part because he could just look at my face and see the wires in my brain going haywire. It was meant as a compliment.

Mr. Mitchell’s rehearsals were organized, prepared, planned, efficient, and fun. He knew what he was doing. I have no idea what kind of theater background he had, but he was clearly The Man. He ruled absolutely over that production, but welcomed faculty and parents to participate. Although he couldn’t have done it without their help, there was no doubt who was in charge. I cringe today thinking about all the WORK that was involved to start off with a musical production. Not a simple one-act play or a light comedy, but a full-blown musical! In addition to scripts, music would need to be rented, musicians would be needed to play, and a conductor would be needed to prepare and control them. Sets, scenery, props, costumes, special effects, advertising, marketing, ticketing, royalties, etc. In any normal theater production, you just rely on the machinery that’s already in place from previous productions for all of those things and go with it. However, when you start from scratch, ALL of these vital things have to be created from nothing, and Mr. Mitchell got it done. How?!? It blows my mind to think about it.

Part of the play’s promotion involved opening up a rehearsal to the public, which was a brilliant idea. Auburn High hosted some sort of parent tour event of the campus facilities, and Mr. Mitchell reserved the Small Auditorium that night for us to rehearse in front of the public. They got to see “behind the scenes” and ask questions of the cast and Director, and we got to practice performing in front of live people. Although it looked like a live dress rehearsal, Mr. Mitchell would stop scenes, give directions, take questions, and restart. The parents in attendance were mesmerized. Like I said, brilliant. My character, Renfield, didn’t own an actual knife, so he pretended to slit people’s throats with his index finger. This photo of Craig Calhoun as Van Helsing and me was taken at that open, public rehearsal.

It’s crazy now to think how much was on the line (or should I say “at stake” since it was a Dracula play?) with that production and how much the future of Drama at Auburn High School depended on everything going right. No, not “right” – PERFECT. And yet, Mr. Mitchell allowed us to have a voice in the production. I’m not saying he turned it over to us, but if anyone in the cast had a good idea, he listened. If it was good enough, he used it. In one particular scene, a fistfight breaks out onstage between characters, and we were having a hard time choreographing it to look good. Robert Cox suggested we kill the stage lights and point a strobe light at the actors. He’d seen it done somewhere before, and Mitch was intrigued. Since I had just gotten a strobe light for Christmas, mine was volunteered and used, and the scene looked AWESOME! I’ll never forget the sound of the audience gasping every night at that spot. Unlike many teachers with overbearing egos, Mr. Mitchell was never threatened by students having better ideas than he, and I still conduct my bands at CVCC the exact same way. Every student in our band has a voice in rehearsals as long as it will make us sound better.

Dracula, Baby was a total 100% smash hit! It was standing room only for every performance, and the future for Drama at AHS looked bright. The next year, we performed George Orwell’s 1984, and although it wasn’t as big of a hit as Dracula, Baby, it was solid. An official Drama Club was created with Mr. Mitchell as the faculty sponsor. At that point, some of the other faculty members decided they wanted in on the action as well, and pressure was put on Mr. Mitchell to step back and let others have a shot. Why not? He’d done all the hard work. It was at that point that Mr. Mitchell completely stuck his neck out for me and shielded me from faculty persecution over a different play’s production.

In 1977, we did a cute little Christmas play called The Tinker and I had the lead role (again another character whose brain was short-circuiting). Mr. Mitchell directed the play and we performed it in December. It was a hit, of course. The following Spring, some of the other faculty members involved with the Drama Club entered our production of The Tinker into some kind of theater competition at Auburn University, and our cast was hastily re-assembled. The problems were overwhelming. First, Mr. Mitchell was busy and couldn’t pick back up as Director. Second, two students in the cast had already graduated early and would have to be replaced at the last minute. Third, “last minute” was an understatement. We had time for ONE rehearsal with the new cast members, and almost everyone had forgotten their lines. It was a disaster. There was no way Mr. Mitchell would have gone forward with that nonsense, but the two faculty members now in charge were possessed and obsessed to go through with it no matter what. I was embarrassed at how hideous we were, and did not want to go through with the performance at the competition. I begged them to call it off, but they were insistent. I asked my parents what to do, and they suggested I call Mr. Mitchell and get his advice.

Mr. Mitchell did not waste words with me. He said if I didn’t feel right, then I shouldn’t do it. He said that no matter what, no one has the power over me to force me into something that feels wrong. There may be consequences, certainly, but the choice is still mine. He said if it feels wrong, don’t do it. Butterflies and cold feet were one thing – feeling wrong in my soul was different. He said I owed them the courtesy to tell them I wasn’t performing, and to make sure I was in the Principal’s Office the first thing Monday morning so that Mr. Douglas heard my side of the story first. I asked my parents what they thought, and they agreed with Mr. Mitchell. I called the other faculty members to advise them of my decision, and they threatened me.

So, it was to be insurrection.

I didn’t show up at the competition. At the time they were scheduled to be onstage, I took a walk through my neighborhood, and they couldn’t perform without me. Even though I’d given them advance warning, they still called my house and threatened me some more. On Monday morning, I was in the Principal’s Office as soon as the building was unlocked. I explained everything, including Mr. Mitchell’s advice and my parents’ compliance. I made sure to emphasize Mr. Mitchell’s words that I backed out because it felt wrong to go through with it. As I was leaving Mr. Douglas’ office, the two boiling faculty members were on their way in. He stopped them, had the secretary call for Mr. Mitchell, and saw all three of them together while I waited outside. After a fairly short meeting, the two faculty members emerged silently enraged and murdered me with their eyes as they walked by. Mr. Mitchell slyly grinned at me as he walked by. Whatever he’d said in that meeting made all the difference. Those two ladies were ordered to leave me alone, and I was ordered to leave theater alone at Auburn High School.

Years later, I would learn all about professional ethics in education, and I never saw any page in any textbook that covered what that man did for me that day by directly going up against two colleagues on my behalf. It was such a “Mitch” thing to do.

In the classroom, he was kind of an enigma. He ate onions at his desk, because he “didn’t want to get sick.” He also made every, single student recite Claude McKay’s Harlem Renaissance fire-breathing poem, “If We Must Die,” by heart. You could just stand there and say it dryly, but he preferred that you recited it with feeling. I think he probably took a little perverse pleasure in watching the rich, elite, suburbanite kids of Auburn High struggle with the words of that powerful poem. Good for him.

For my demonstration speech, I played the banjo, and I was stunned at how much Mr. Mitchell knew about it. I shouldn’t have been. Years later, I would learn that the banjo was an African instrument brought to the South by slaves, and I believe he certainly already knew that.

Not long after that speech, I cowardly tried to back out of a student talent show onstage in the Large Auditorium for an assembly where I was supposed to play guitar and sing a country song. Mr. Mitchell confronted me about it and wanted me to explain my change of heart. Why would he even care about such a stupid thing like that? Because that was Mitch. I told him that my new jazz friends in the Lab Band at school probably wouldn’t approve of me singing a country song in public. He pinched the frame of his glasses and slid them up closer to his face, which was a gesture that meant he was about to get real. He said, “Tommy, have any of those jazz snobs done anything to make your life better? Not your music, but your life?”

I said, “I don’t know.”

He said, “Get up there and have as much fun as you had when you played the banjo for me.”

I’m not stupid, I totally took his advice. I wore a black duster and a black cowboy hat onstage, and I played and sang Hey, Porter by Johnny Cash. I had so much fun! Of course, my new elite snobby jazz friends openly disapproved, but I refused to let it stick. Mr. Mitchell was absolutely right. As the pieces of my grown-up musical life started falling into place years later, his brilliant advice guided many of my choices. 1) Did it improve my life? 2) Was it fun?

The man was a genius.

At the beginning of this tribute, I mentioned that I didn’t know much about the personal life of Mr. Mitchell, and neither did many of my classmates. I took it upon myself to connect with two of his relatives, and they filled me in on some of his background. Leevonne Mitchell was born in September, 1944 in Norfolk, Virginia, and died in January, 2014. He would have been 80 this year. He served in the army in Vietnam before attending college, and lived for a time in Michigan and Washington, D.C. He has one daughter who attended Auburn High School, and now lives in Virginia. Here are some personal words from a member of his family:

“He loved to have fun when not teaching or helping someone. He was very mellow, enjoyed a good meal and a cold beer. Wasn’t a rowdy guy, but you knew he meant business. Great guy … honorable, caring, loving kind soul. I miss him daily.”

He was “TC” to some, which he said stood for “Too Cool.” He was “Mitch” to a lot of us. And although he was “Daddy” to only one person on this earth, he was a powerful father-figure for all of us who were fortunate enough to learn from him.

Mr. Mitchell was a good man.

Tom Daniel

Tom Daniel holds a Ph.D in Music Education from Auburn University. He is a husband, father of four cats and a dog, and a college band director who lives back in the woods of Alabama with a cotton field right outside his bedroom window. His grandfather once told him he was "Scotch-Irish," and Tom has been trying to live up to those lofty Southern standards ever since.

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