WINTERBORO — The old school is one of a handful of buildings still standing in Talladega County that can make passersby traveling on Alabama 21 do a double-take — one that also possesses a rich history and garners deep-rooted community support.Winterboro High School, known to some around the state as “the little rock school”, was originally built in the late 1800s and has evolved into a large, two-story facility that grabs people’s attention with its beautiful rock exterior.
“In talking with people around the state of Alabama, when you mention Winterboro, most of them will respond with, ‘Yes, that’s that beautiful rock school,’ and that they’ve seen it on their way to Birmingham, the beach or the race track,” said Dr. Kevin Maddox, a former principal at the school. “Most people around the state are familiar with the façade of the school, if not the history or traditions.”
Maddox said he remembers during his more than two years as principal, members of the Winterboro Educational Foundation telling him stories about relatives who brought the rock to the school and could still remember what years the additions were constructed.
“Winterboro is one of those places where there are so many people living in that community that have such historical connections to the school,” he said.
History
The school was first built in the late 1800s as a one-room log building. The log structure was replaced in 1890 by a two-story building that housed the school until 1919, when four schools — Winterboro, Alpine, Riser’s Chapel and Berney Station — consolidated.
Ira Rhodes Sr., a student at the school, donated the 18 acres for the new school to be built, the site where the school still stands today.
A six-room school was built for $8,200 under the Smith Hughes Act, a 1917 congressional measure that provided federal funding for schools teaching “vocational agriculture” to students who were already working or soon would be working on a farm.
The community came together to build a more updated school in 1935 under the direction of Talladega architect P.M. Swindall. The new building’s construction reportedly cost $54,000 and resulted in the consolidation of Winterboro, Tallassahatchie and Plantersville schools.
Resident Jeff Clay donated rocks from his farm to use for the new school building, resulting in the school’s stone structure façade. While the new school building was constructed, citizens from surrounding communities reportedly brought wagons to haul rocks to the school site.
The school, which featured 15 classrooms, a library and an auditorium, was finished in 1937.
The school received accreditation as a high school by the state Department of Education in the late 1930s. The facility was later accredited by the Southern Association of High Schools and Colleges in 1954.
Today, the school serves more than 450 students in grades five through 12. Students attending the school come from one of the largest geographic ranges in the Talladega County School System, going north to Renfroe, south to Sycamore, east to Chandler Springs and west to the Childersburg line.
“Winterboro draws from such a large area,” Maddox said. “I know there’s a lot of farm land out there, but the kids come from such long distances. Some have long bus rides, but there’s a lot of pride there.
“That says a lot, because there’s a lot of places that don’t have that anymore, unfortunately.”
A symbol of pride
Clara Curtis, a 1962 graduate of Winterboro High School and founder of the Winterboro Educational Foundation, agreed that graduates of the school and members of the Winterboro community have a great sense of pride in the old school.
“People who live in that area have nothing but a school and churches, and therefore that’s their love,” she said. “It’s a rural school that just has such pride. There’s just a tremendous pride that’s theirs.”
Curtis said she attended the school until her family moved to Florida when she was in third grade. After her family moved back to the area, she decided she wanted to go back to the same school.
“I could’ve gone to Talladega because I lived in the city limits, but back in those days they let you go wherever you wanted to go,” she said.
Similarly, Talladega resident and 1966 Winterboro High graduate Becky Griffin said she lived far from the school, but had attended for a different reason: Griffin was bused to the school outside her district during desegregation. She said most of her siblings graduated from the school, as well.
Griffin said she thinks the school is special “because it was a rural school and the teachers and the faculty at that time.”
“Everybody was so closely knit,” she added. “It was just a school that when you were there, you just fell in love with — with the school and the teachers.
“Anyone who went to school there shares that same sentiment. There’s just a special bond among the graduates of Winterboro.”
Maddox said the thing that makes Winterboro unique to him is the fact there are not a lot of other structures in the area.
“The school is the centerpiece of the community,” he said. “It’s kind of the focus of the community, and the community has a lot of pride in the school. There have been other buildings that have come and gone over time, but the school has been a mainstay there for many years.”
The road ahead
Plans to update the school facilities have been discussed for the past several years, igniting some controversy with members of the community.
But in addition to plans for an updated structure, Talladega County Schools Superintendent Suzanne Lacey said, there are also plans for more updated learning opportunities.
Lacey, along with a group of school and community leaders, visited Zebra New Tech at Rochester High School in Rochester, Ind., and Arsenal New Tech High School in Indianapolis to look at a curriculum model for the school, a model that incorporates technology- and project-based learning, which Lacey said would help prepare students for 21st century skills.
She said the system is working on a comprehensive plan now, and if things fall into place, the new curriculum could be implemented as early as the 2009-2010 school year.
As for the plans for a new structural facility, Lacey said, the front façade and the rock portion would be preserved with the addition of the new structure, in an effort to save some of the building’s extensive history.
She said she thinks the new addition would be good for the community, as well as a positive development for the system’s curriculum plans.
“Anytime you have new construction, it further supports the learning environment,” Lacey said. “With the new tech model, there is a lot of technology that would need to be implemented in the building — not to say that you can’t do it in an older facility, but certainly a newer, brighter facility would support the technology portion of our plan.
“I think it’s just a good morale booster for the staff, the students and the community, and it further instills the school pride and our commitment to our kids learning in a modern and updated facility.”
The plans for the new facility are part of the School System’s capital plan, as the next school to be built in the system.
However, Lacey said she has no prediction of when the school plans could come to fruition.
“Right now, as far as a year down the road or a few years down the road. No, I can’t predict that 100 percent, but I would say that in the next few years that will definitely be a possibility.”
