Marker to honor former Lincoln County school
BROOKHAVEN, Miss. - BROOKHAVEN, Miss. (AP) — One of Lincoln County's numerous old country schools will soon be recognized and remembered, though the old schoolhouse has long been torn down.
The site of the former Fair Oak Springs school, a consolidated school in eastern Lincoln County that operated from 1927 to 1960, will be remembered with a historical marker by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History sometime in the latter half of 2010. The marker is under development now, said Larry Butler, 67, a member of the school's Class of 1960 that spearheaded the effort to erect a market on the spot.
"It had a spirit about it and we loved it, and we're happy we're getting a historical marker, and it will forever be known there was a school there," Butler said.
Butler told members of the Lincoln County Historical and Genealogical Society that the idea for a marker for Fair Oak Springs was first proposed during a reunion in 2008, but no clear leader emerged to take on the project. During the subsequent reunion earlier this year, he took on the duty himself.
"I was determined to do something, because next year will mark 50 years since the school was torn down, and when my generation dies out, there won't be anyone to remember," he said.
At the 2009 reunion, Butler said class members began discussing possible fundraising options for purchasing the approximately $1,700 marker.
One class member suggested the alumni "just see right now" how much money they could raise from within the room. By the end of the meeting, the Fair Oak Springs members had given about $1,300.
Word traveled to more alumni, and by the end of the week, $1,700 had been collected. Word spread beyond Lincoln County, even beyond Mississippi, and by the end of that month, Butler said more than $2,000 had been raised for the marker.
So, 83 years after the school first opened, Fair Oak Springs will be recognized as one of Lincoln County's historical sites.
The school opened in 1927 as a consolidation of nearby schools at Fair River, Oak Grove and Big Springs, taking on the combination of the three names. Butler said the U-shaped building consisted of eight classrooms, four on each side, with an auditorium in the middle. The elementary grades all paired up to make the four classrooms adequate, and the same teacher taught pairs of grades.
Instead of indoor restrooms, the school was equipped with a pair of outhouses. Indoor restrooms weren't added until 1948, when they were included in the first brick gymnasium ever built in Lincoln County.
"People have asked me, 'With a school like that, did you have trouble getting a good education?' I like to think I did," said Butler, who holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern Mississippi and a Master of Religious Education from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
Butler recalled the names of teachers and administrators who served at Fair Oak Springs, most notably Eugene Randall, who served as the school's principal from the 1930s into the 1940s, and L.L. Simmons, who took over for Randall and headed the school until its closure.
"A strict principal, but a good one," Butler said of Simmons.
Butler said more than 500 students attended Fair Oak Springs at its peak, but by the late 1950s, the school was losing students to the Brookhaven School District. The size of the student body dwindled to around 200 before the Lincoln County Board of Supervisors voted to close the school in March 1960.
"That was a blow to us at Fair River," Butler said. "The school was the center of our community. You didn't go to town all the time, you went to the school. It's where we had all of our plays, Christmas programs and reunions."
Not long after its closure, Fair Oak Springs school was torn down. As the years went on, U.S. Highway 84 was converted into a four lane, and it passed right over the site of the school.
"When you drive through there now, you have no idea there was a school there," Butler said.
The historical marker will change that, and Fair Oak Springs' alumni are proud the site of their youth will become a historical site.
"My children and grandchildren will be able to see that and say, 'That's where granny finished high school,'" said Julie Bankston, who graduated from the school in 1948. "I love it."
___
Information from: The Daily Leader, http://www.dailyleader.com
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
