Mrs. White, Portsmouth High matriarch, retiring after 42 years

School Committee accepts longtime administrative assistant's resignation with 'deep regret'

By Jim McGaw
Posted 8/8/17

PORTSMOUTH — You won’t have Mrs. White to lean on anymore.

When Portsmouth High School begins classes later this month, Diana White won’t be there to greet students at the …

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Mrs. White, Portsmouth High matriarch, retiring after 42 years

School Committee accepts longtime administrative assistant's resignation with 'deep regret'

Posted

NOTE: This story was updated Wednesday morning to include comments from Diana White.

PORTSMOUTH — You won’t have Mrs. White to lean on anymore.

When Portsmouth High School begins classes later this month, Diana White won’t be there to greet students at the door.

She won’t be there to help with an assembly.

She won’t be there to make sure a couple hundred seniors show up for Awards Night, or turn in their money for graduation caps and gowns.

She won’t be there to pester new faculty members for pictures of their kids.

After 42 years in the district, the longtime administrative assistant to the PHS principal — known to all simply as “Mrs. White” — has finally decided to call it a day. The School Committee Tuesday night accepted her resignation with “deep regret.”

“This employee is a pillar of Portsmouth High School and the greater school community,” said committee member Andrew Kelly. “She has dramatically impacted the lives of generations of Portsmouth High School students, including me. I saw firsthand how hard she worked on senior awards and graduation. I saw how caring and attentive she was toward the entire staff and student body.

“I am truly saddened that she is moving on.”

Mr. Kelly suggested that administrators prepare the “largest plaque” they can find “for her dedicated and long service to the district.”

Committee Vice-Chairwoman Emily Copeland agreed, saying the committee should formally honor Mrs. White at its next meeting.

Mrs. White’s last day of work, according to the committee, is Tuesday, Aug. 15. 

Honored in May

During an Arbor Day celebration at PHS last May, Mrs. White’s extended family of students, teachers and administrators gathered to honor her with a new elm tree that was planted outside her office.

At the time, Mrs. White made it clear she wasn’t going anywhere, but apparently changed her mind sometime after that day, Mr. Kelly said.

During that May ceremony, PHS science teacher Jean-Paul Arsenault said Mrs. White was invaluable to the school.

“She’s the liaison — the middleman — not only to the principal but everything else,” he said. “I’ll often ask the other secretaries, ‘What do I do about this?’ and they’ll say, ‘Go ask Diana.’ More often than not, she’s the one to go to.”

‘It’s a heartache’

Contacted Wednesday morning at the school, Mrs. White acknowledged she’s “slipping out the back door” but said it was time for her to leave.

“I still love it as much as I ever did,” she said. “I love to come to work every single day. I expected to die here, but that changed.”

Her husband, Bob, has been nagging her to retire for years.

“He’s planning all kinds of stuff,” Mrs. White said with a laugh. “At this point, I’d just like to sit on the patio and have a cup of coffee.”

When asked how much she’ll miss the students, she sighed.

“It’s a heartache. That’s all I can say."

Diana White, Mrs. White, Portsmouth High School, Portsmouth School Committee

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Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.