This time of year I get all nostalgic about our annual football Thanksgiving Day game with Clarendon. What wonderful days those were with all of our great friends.
The Holly Grove High School Building was built in 1922. It originally contained 4 large rooms on the bottom floor (grade school) and upstairs the high school levels. One simply graduated upstairs to a higher grade. Wings were added to the structure later by NYA labor in the early 1940s when the school consolidated with Palmer and Stevens (Ragtown) Schools. The old Gym and Home Economics Building later followed, thus completing the campus facility. The high school building was used for housing of refugees of the 1927 flood in late April of that year.
I graduated in 1973. The old High School was still there at that time. It was a great two story building, with stairs climbing up both sides. It had graduating pictures all over the entrance walls. The Superintendent office was to the left as you came in the main entrance. I served as hall monitor for 3 years.
One time my foot caught on the step in the top section. I was practically running down the stairs trying to keep from falling, a good friend of mine caught me. Boy, was I glad to see him standing at the bottoms of the stairs!!!
There were so many class rooms and buildings at that time. It was a good school to grow up in and graduate from. The schools at that time had strong standards, where you were taught to treat your classmates and teachers with respect. But, not only that, they respected you back, no matter what color you were.
As a person who was deliveried by Dr. Herd Stone I must say he is one of the most wonderful persons I have had the pleasure of knowing outside of my Clifton family.
He was a man that wrote the book on medicine in a rural envvironment. He was responsbile for the quaility of life we all live today.
From ducking hunting, farming and taking care of people he was the best
This list of faculty at "Holly Grove School" appears in the program book for the 8th Annual Holly Grove P.T.A. Horse Show, May 25, 1967:
Mr. Leslie Speck Mr. Winston Burks Jr. Mrs. Winston Burks Jr. Mrs. E.D. Chism Mrs. E.C. Clifton Jr. Sam Dace Mrs. Jimmy Dearing Mrs. Scott Fowler Eva Gamble Mrs. Otis Givens Richard Gray Mrs. Joyce Gregory C.R. Gordon Mrs. Alpha Harris Mrs. Carl Wayne Hill Mrs. Bert Hix Mr. Gene Hobbs Mrs. Fred Johnson Mrs. Jack Lineback Mrs. Mort Ober Mrs. John Patterson Mrs. Jimmy Peacock Jimmy D. Peacock Mrs. Leslie Speck Mrs. Harry Sylar Miss Merriam Wheeler Mrs. Pearl Winans
According to some longtime HG residents, the first yearbook for Holly Grove High School was published in 1945. My mother, Martha King Dearing, graduated in 1949, and over the years she collected many of the old yearbooks. Does anyone have a copy of the 1945 HGHS Yearbook???
Does anyone have any information about the black school used before desegregation? What was it called? Where was it located? Are there any photos of it? etc.....
I'll never forget the smell of wood polish and chalk dust that filled Holly Grove Elementary School during the years I attended (1964-1970). The old wood floors always seemed to gleam (thanks to Viola and Bush -- weren't they the custodians during this period?). Anyway, I vividly remember there was a small wooden "hut" near the track behind the elementary building where students could buy candy and other treats during recess. My friends and I liked to capture the swing set, with its huge, heavy wooden seats. Another great memory is all the students getting together to play baseball, with 3rd grade teacher Virginia Rose Johnson serving as organizer, umpire and referee. Oh the dust we stirred up!
