Robert C. Brooks Jr., a veteran St. Tammany Parish educator and community leader in Slidell, died Wednesday at the age of 104.

Brooks was principal of the former St. Tammany High School for nearly 40 years. He moved to Leesville following Hurricane Katrina to live with his daughter, Dr. June Paul.

Known as “Doc,” Brooks was reputed to be a firm disciplinarian to both his students and those who taught under him.

Robert C. Brooks Jr.

“If you didn’t have a lesson plan, he would send you home,” said St. Tammany Federation of Teachers and School Employees President Elsie Burkhalter, who was a student at St. Tammany under Brooks and later returned to teach at her alma mater.

Born April 18, 1905, in Vidalia, Brooks was the second of four children who grew up sharecropping on a plantation with his father. At the encouragement of his mother, a schoolteacher, Brooks completed high school at Natchez Junior College in Mississippi, working his way through school as a bellboy at the Eola Hotel in Natchez.

Brooks went on to receive a degree in agriculture from Southern University, then in the mid-1940s became one of the first black educators in the parish to earn a master’s degree in education.

Brooks taught agriculture in the Shreveport area for four years, then moved to Slidell, where he taught at St. Tammany High School for two years before becoming principal.

The school began as St. Tammany Training School in the 1920s and was the first institution in the parish to open for older black students. Brooks served as its principal for nearly 40 years and was on hand to witness the coming of integration in 1967.

Brooks, a former college baseball player, also coached athletics at the school and played with the students until he was well into his 50s and his eyesight began to fail.

Burkhalter, a former Slidell City councilwoman, remembers Brooks as a conservative administrator who valued punctuality but also as one who pushed his students to make the most of their talents.

“He taught me to be a community activist,” she said. “I remember how many times he said, ‘girl, you can do this!’”

Burkhalter said Brooks became like a second father to many, as well as the father that some never had.

Brooks’ daughter, also a former educator, agreed with Burkhalter’s assessment of the impact he made on his pupils.

“I can’t tell you how many times we ran into someone he taught,” said Paul. “They’d say, ‘Doc, you saved my life.’”

Brooks fought hard for many things during his tenure. He encouraged his teachers to pursue a graduate education, his daughter said, often telling them they needed to be prepared for the time when segregation would end.

His school was the first to get air conditioning, but Brook’s proudest accomplishment was the school’s full accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

“He worked so hard for that school,” said Paul. “He was unstoppable.”

Brooks retired in 1975, and in 2004 his former school building was dedicated to him as the Robert C. Brooks Jr. Curriculum Center, which housed vocational education programs. Hurricane Katrina destroyed the building in 2005, and in 2006, a stretch of Fourth Street, where the center was located, was renamed for him.

Plans are now in the works for a modern facility to be built on the same site and to be known as the Robert C. Brooks Jr. Educational Complex.

When the plans for the new building were presented last month, Brooks’ grandson attended, as did many of his former students.

They reminisced and shared stories of Brooks’ encouragement and his will to see his students succeed.

“He always said ‘never go into battle with a dull axe,’” said Stanley “Hut” Jones, a physical education teacher at St. Tammany Junior High.

Services will be held Wednesday at Journey Fellowship Church, 30042 N. Dixie Ranch Road in Lacombe. Viewing is from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m., with the funeral service at 11 a.m. He will be buried at Black Creek Cemetery in Greensburg.