C. E. Byrd

Who was C. E. Byrd?

Clifton Ellis Byrd, Sr., was a prominent educator in the U.S. state of Louisiana during the first quarter of the 20th century. The nationally recognized C.E. Byrd High School in Shreveport, the alma mater of many of that city's civic and political leaders, bears his name. C.E. Byrd is Shreveport's oldest public high school.

Byrd was born to John Thomas Byrd and the former Sarah Rebecca McClintic in Bath County in western Virginia. He was unrelated to the Virginia Byrd family dynasty. He attended local schools, then since defunct Augusta Military Academy near Staunton, and the University of Virginia at Charlottesville from 1882 to 1883. He taught school in Front Royal in Warren County in northern Virginia from 1883 to 1889, when he accepted a principalship in Monroe, the seat of Ouachita Parish in northeastern Louisiana.

In 1892, he left Monroe to become the principal of the first public high school in Shreveport, which then occupied two rented rooms in the YMCA building. His salary was $70 per month. In 1899, Byrd became the school superintendent. In 1905, he accepted the presidency of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston in Lincoln Parish, where he served for only one year. In 1907, at the age of forty-eight, he returned to Shreveport to become superintendent of the Caddo Parish public schools, a position which he filled until his death.