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Aquilina Howell attended Lincoln High School in the early 1930s and graduated from the all-black Lincoln High in 1934. She later graduated from Florida A&M with a bachelor's degree in social studies in 1938, took a master's degree in guidance from New York University and did additional graduate work at Boston University. She went on to become a teacher and administrator in Leon County for 43 years and was the first black woman to serve as an assistant superintendent in Leon County (retired in 1985). Howell helped desegregate Leon County schools and was known for being able to forge a consensus among disparate groups. She is credited with smoothing the way during the transition to integrated schools in Florida. The school system's Instructional Services Center on West Pensacola Street was named for Howell in 1995. She was married for 52 years to Sam Howell, a Tallahassee insurance agent, who died in 1994. They had two daughters and lived on Barbourville Drive. Aquilina Howell died in 2000 at age 82 and was posthumously inducted into the Florida Educator Hall of Fame in 2000.