Memorial service scheduled for Lamping Elementary School namesake
Former Henderson educator and principal Frank Lamping died Nov. 11.
A memorial service is planned for 10 a.m. Nov. 22 at St. Thomas More Church, 130 N. Pecos Road, with a reception to follow at 11:30 a.m. at Lamping Elementary School, 2551 Summit Grove Drive, the school that bears his name.
The longtime educator couldn’t imagine how his parents would have reacted if they were around to hear that Lamping was a namesake of a school.
“It is the high mark of a career,” he said in an interview with then-View reporter Michael Lyle in 2013.
Lamping’s parents were German immigrants with limited education, and Lamping not only earned his master’s in education but also served more than 30 years as an educator and principal of six Las Vegas Valley schools.
The seventh child of a first-generation American, Lamping graduated from North Catholic High School in Pittsburgh and served three years in the Korean War. When it was time to go to college, he knew education was a calling.
“I always had a yearning to teach,” he said.
He received his undergraduate degree from Slippery Rock State Teachers’ College and then his master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh.
From there, he taught in the Pittsburgh Public School District.
One day while teaching his high school class, Lamping said a man came in and asked to observe the classroom. After the class ended, the man told Lamping he was in the area to recruit teachers.
“I noticed he was sunburned, so I asked, ‘Where are you from?’ ” he said. “He said he was from Las Vegas.”
Lamping said he was interested in interviewing.
“The guy told me he had already seen everything he needed to,” he said.
In 1963 Lamping moved to Las Vegas and joined the Clark County School District as a coordinator of special education.
After years in the classroom, Lamping made the leap and became a principal in 1965.
“I was looking forward to it,” he said. “I had been in the classroom a while and learned a lot of techniques. I knew how a school could be run.”
He served as principal at six schools in the valley — Paradise Elementary, Hyde Park Junior High, Orr Junior High, Guinn Junior High, Burkholder Middle School and White Middle School — and opened two of them.
“My claim to fame was being able to turn junior highs into middle schools,” he said.
Junior high schools, he said, were miniature high schools that didn’t prepare students for the transition. Middle schools were designed to help the transition process better.
Under his leadership, Guinn Junior High received the President’s Excellence in Education Award.
Lamping also received the School-Business Partnership Award, was named a Milken Family Foundation honoree and was inducted into the Clark County School District Hall of Fame.
During his career, he took a year off to work as the Senior Vice President of Valley Bank before returning to education.
In 1992, Lamping opened White Middle School, where he worked as the principal until he retired in 1994.
“I just felt it was time,” he said. “I wanted to do other things like travel.”
Lamping couldn’t believe that he was going to become the namesake for a school when it was announced in 1989.
“Just wish my parents could have seen it,” he said.
After his wife, Betty Lee, died, he had the library at the school named in her honor.
He continued to travel, as part of his post-career goal.
But even after retirement, he couldn’t stay away from the school district where he said he helped out one day a week and assisted with fundraising.
“Mr. Lamping’s commitment to the students and faculty of our school was like none other,” said Lamping Elementary School principal Robert Solomon in a notice posted on the school district website. “He was a true educator. In every opportunity, Mr. Lamping shared the importance of reading and how this connected to success. He will always be remembered for his impact in our school district.”
Lamping was always involved with the school, making weekly visits to help students with reading and science, or sometimes to simply bake cookies for the students.
Lamping said he was grateful to participate in school activities.
“I am lucky to be alive to see my school doing well,” he said during his 2013 interview. “Not a lot of people who have schools named after them get to see that.”
