History - East Austin Rotary Club

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Historic School Names:

Did you realize that two of AISD schools are named after the East Austin Rotary Club extended family?

Akins High School opened its doors to students in August of 2000 is named after Dr. W. Charles Akins. He is a man who wanted to create communities in which diversity is valued.

In 1973, Dr. Akins was selected as the first principal of the new Anderson High School during one of the most turbulent social times in Austin history - the implementation of federally-mandated school busing for racial integration. Later he was an Associate Superintendent of AISD.

Dr. Akins' father, Elmer Akins, who died in 1998 was a charter member of the East Austin Rotary Club.

Elmer attended Blackshear Elementary. Elmer and Mattie's first home was the old construction shed left over from the building of the Varsity Theatre in the 30's. They moved it to Chestnut Avenue and used it as their home for twelve years.

Elmer loved singing in gospel choirs and quartets. He hosted live gospel programs on KNOW radio and later after his friends Jake Pickle and John Connally formed KVET radio he started his Gospel Train radio program. Every Sunday morning Elmer would share his passion for gospel music on KVET. He hosted the Gospel Train radio program for 51 years and it was the longest running radio program in the US.

We remember Elmer never missing a meeting and always showing up for Rotary in his business suit, white shirt and tie.

The Bertha Sadler Means Young Women's Leadership Academy is a middle school that is focused on scholarship, leadership, character education and community service opened its doors in 2014. It is named after Bertha Means a charter member of the East Austin Rotary Club.

Expected by her family to attend college, Means served as a secretary for the Tillotson College faculty. Yet when she got off the train in downtown Austin, she tried to hail a taxi for her first visit to the East Austin campus. The only ones available were Yellow and Roy's cabs.

She first chose the Yellow. "I can't take you across East Avenue," the driver said. "I had grown up in the Jim Crow era," Means says. "I was quite accustomed to not being able to eat at restaurants and having to sit at the back of the bus ... the back of everything."

Roy's was owned by an Hispanic family, and would cross the color line of East Avenue, which became Interstate 35. "I've always admired Roy's family for that gesture," she says. "I didn't realize that many years later that I'd be in the taxi cab business."

Bertha married one of the faculty members James Means, in 1941. The same year they helped found St. James Episcopal Church.

In 1962, Bertha put her foot down. Furious that her children were not allowed to skate at the Ice Palace rink - on the same day she was turned away from a driving range on Burnet Road - she organized.

"Enough's enough!" Bertha said. "I've had it. I've been discriminated against all my life. It's time to stop that. I'm not going to let my kids go through what I've gone through."

The educator didn't stop calling leaders, making speeches and picketing businesses until the last remnants of Jim Crow segregation were swept from Austin.

Bertha and James took over Harlem Cabs in 1984 with 59 taxis. Renamed the Austin Cab Company it grew to 187 cabs.

So there you have it, two AISD schools named after either an East Austin Rotary member or one of their children.