In 2013, Lubbock Independent School District combined Iles Elementary School and Wheatley Elementary School to create  Joan Y. Ervin Elementary.

Joan Y. Ervin was, the city’s first African-American elected official.  Ervin won an at-large seat on the Lubbock Independent School District Board of Trustees, and served from 1970 to 1978.

Winning a seat on the school board was only one of her accomplishments.   She was also the first African-American hired as a secretary at IBM in Lubbock and in Lubbock city government.

Vernita Woods-Holmes, a former LISD board member said of her, “There was a saying, ‘When Joan speaks, people listen."