Crossing Guard Granny

Waving her stop sign overhead, Leona Kennedy strides across four lanes of traffic and secures a path for students headed to Stapleton Elementary School.

“Where’ve you been, Dalton? You’re late for school, honey,” says Kennedy, who’s been shepherding children across Hearnes Boulevard in Joplin, Mo., (pop. 45,504) for 47 years.

Kennedy, 82, grabs the 9-year-old boy’s hand and hurries him across the busy street to the school’s front door. She hugs him and assures him that he’s not that late. “Bless his heart,” she says.

Over the decades, Kennedy, who lives one block from the school, has watched the neighborhood change. She witnessed construction of the present school building, watched as two lanes of traffic became four, and recalls when the traffic light was installed. She’s outlasted seven principals and now mother hens a second generation across the street.

“She’s like everybody’s grandmother,” Principal Marilyn Alley says. “She knows where everyone goes, she knows their families, and she’s so concerned and caring. She comes to all the school functions.”

Like most grandmothers, Kennedy remembers birthdays—hundreds of them through the years—and gives a dollar to each birthday boy or girl.

“Oh mercy, mercy, I just love these little kids,” Kennedy says. “They keep me going. I get up, take my shower and drink my coffee, and know I need to get down here.”

Kennedy took the job in 1956 so she could guarantee the safe crossing of her own two children, Wally and Sandy. At the time, the position paid $1 an hour and required a uniform consisting of a white blouse, tie, navy skirt, and police cap.

Nowadays, the petite grandmother wears a bright orange patrol vest atop casual clothes, and except on Halloween maybe—when she dresses up as a hobo, a hound, or the Pink Panther—she continues to take her work seriously.

“She’s really nice,” says Drew Douthitt, 11. “She knows what activities we’re all interested in. She asks me, ‘How’s school going? How’s sports going?’”

Kennedy often lingers after the school bell to catch any stragglers. Once she waited while a student retrieved a show-and-tell project.

“Little ol’ Mike Ernest was coming across the street and suddenly stopped. He said, ‘Oh, I’ve got to go back home now. I forgot Mama’s gallstones.’”

For 12 years, Veda Boyd Jones placed her three boys under Kennedy’s wing. “She takes seriously the responsibility of keeping those kids safe, and they know it, and they do what she says,” Jones says. “She makes every child feel special.”

Former Stapleton students know exactly where to find Kennedy at 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.

“One day one stopped and said, ‘Mrs. Kennedy, you don’t remember me, do you? I just wanted to let you know that I’m getting married in the morning.’”

“I said, ‘Eddie Welch, I do remember you, but you’ve lost some of your freckles,” Leona says and laughs. “Oh, they grow up too fast. They’ll stop down there and show me their new babies.”

While most of her work is in full view with a whistle ’round her neck, other deeds are behind-the-scenes. Kennedy rounds up coats for kids. If a parent is in the hospital, she visits. She shares information on who’s a reliable babysitter and who has a decent house for rent in the neighborhood.

When praised for her good deeds, she seems surprised.

“That’s just what you’re supposed to do in life, honey,” she says, “is be good to people.”

Marti Attoun is a frequent contributor to American Profile.

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