[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 35 (Tuesday, March 18, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E495]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     TRIBUTE TO DR. TEE S. GREER, JR.--EDUCATOR AND COMMUNITY HERO

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                          HON. CARRIE P. MEEK

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 18, 1997

  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is a distinct honor and 
privilege to pay tribute to one of Miami's truly great heroes, Dr. Tee 
S. Greer, Jr. His untimely demise from cancer last Thursday, March 13, 
1997, leaves a deep void in our community.
  Dr. Greer, 60, represented the best and the noblest of our community. 
Coming from a deeply rooted and respected family of educators, his 
forbears helped build the railroad that came to Miami in the late 
1890's. He was married to schoolteacher Billie Greer, the great-niece 
of William Brewer who succeeded the renowned Carter G. Woodson, editor 
of the Journal of Negro History. Graduating from Miami-Overtown's 
historic Booker T. Washington High School in 1954, he served as its 
irrepressible student-body president. His classmates looked up to him 
as a natural-born leader, a gentleman, and a motivator par excellence.
  A prominent member of Dade County's United Way, he also belonged to 
Omega Psi Phi and Sigma Pi Phi, the oldest black fraternity in the 
Nation. He also exercised a steady hand over Miami's King of Clubs, the 
Nation's premiere black civic organization, by helping the youth 
achieve through academic excellence and scholarships. This role has 
indeed turned him into a role model for generations of our Dade County 
youth.
  A meticulous father and a firm believer in the centrality of God in 
his family, he mandated strict attendance at Sunday dinners for his 
four children, now adults--Anita Greer-Dixon, Tee Greer III, Florence, 
and Frederick Greer. He was wont to tell his boyhood story of how he 
constructed a go-cart for the annual Boy Scout race, out of the bike he 
used on his daily paper route. He won the race against the more 
expensive store-bought go-carts. The day after the race he dismantled 
his ``chariot'' and merrily went on his paper route.
  His daughter Florence, who earned two master's degrees, remembered 
that ``. . . our dad taught us that we may have limited resources, but 
we should use what God gave us to get the job done.'' He was a math 
major from Atlanta's Morehouse College and entertained dreams of 
becoming a mechanical engineer. He turned to teaching, however, when he 
found out that upon graduation from college the only job he could find 
in the South in the 1950's was that of a truck driver.
  All in Dade County can vividly recall that in the early 1980's, he 
spearheaded a team from the Dade County public schools to go to 
Washington, DC to secure funding to help the county government deal 
with the influx of thousands of refugees who came to Miami from Cuba's 
port of Mariel.
  Dr. Greer, Junior, fully lived up to his stewardship as a genuine 
educator. His standards for learning and achievement, both low-key and 
laid-back but at the same time stern and consistent, won him the 
accolades of the academic community, particularly the National Alliance 
of Black School Educators. The Alliance saw fit to create a scholarship 
in his name for local high-achieving students who plan to be math and 
science majors.
  His countless successes in educating many a wayward inner city youth 
have become legendary. He gained the confidence of countless parents 
who saw in him as the no-nonsense educator, entrusting him with the 
future of their children and confident that they too would learn from 
him the tenets of scholarship and the pursuit of academic excellence 
under a rigorous discipline. His approach to educating the inner city 
youth emphasized utmost personal responsibility. In times of crises 
crowding the school system's agenda, his forthright guidance and 
counsel was one that verged on his faith in God and faith in one's 
ability to survive the vicissitudes of life.
  Our community was deeply touched and comforted by his undaunted 
leadership, kindly compassion, and personal warmth. As a deacon at 
historic Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Miami's Overtown community, he 
preached and lived by the adage that, with God's help, the quest for 
personal integrity, academic excellence, and professional achievement 
is not beyond the reach of those who are willing to dare the 
impossible.
  Having earned a doctorate in education, he ascended up the ranks and 
was appointed a two-time interim superintendent. He was passed over a 
couple of times in being named permanently to the helm of the Dade 
County public schools, the Nation's fourth largest school system. Still 
in all, Dr. Greer maintained his equanimity and dignity throughout this 
ordeal, rededicating himself to the educational well-being of the 
thousands of young boys and girls in the school system. In so doing he 
rightfully earned the deepest respect and admiration of his colleagues 
and the leadership of Dade County.
  This is the great legacy Dr. Tee S. Greer, Jr., has bequeathed to our 
community. I am greatly privileged to have earned his friendship and to 
have been given the opportunity to live by his noble credo.

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