Montgomery County Superintendent and Training School Alumni Reconvene for Historical Research and Planning

Multiple alumni of the Montgomery County Training School reconvened with Montgomery County School Superintendent Dr. Ronda Hightower on Nov 5 in the Montgomery County Board of Education office in Mount Vernon to further compile information on the school’s timeline of operation.

The series of meetings began following the Montgomery County Board of Education’s decision to exchange the Training School’s former gymnasium to Brewton-Parker Christian University in exchange for $148,000 in scholarship funds during their Oct 16 meeting. Dr. Hightower and several alumni of the Training School began reaching out to community members who had attended or taught at the school to collect memories and official documents in order to build a timeline of the school’s operation.

Following the group’s first meeting, Dr. Hightower began searching through the board of education’s records in which she found attendance sheets from the 1969-1970 school year. She showed the outside of the document to the alumni but could not legally show them the names inside.

However, due to damage from Hurricane Helene, many documents in the school system’s records have been damaged by rain, though a retiree has volunteered their time to sort through the documents.

Former Magistrate Court Judge Ruby Nell and current Magistrate Court Judge Ashley Thornton have also offered to assist Dr. Hightower in searching through Montgomery County court records for more information on the Training School.

Representatives from Brewton-Parker also attended the meeting, including President Dr. Steve Echols and Vice President of Athletics Chris Dooley. According to Dooley, the college wanted to acquire the old gymnasium to renovate and use for their wrestling team, though they were also open to allowing the community to use the gym and to properly commemorate its history.

“The bones over there are good,” said Dooley. “I mean, it is still a strong gym.”

Echols asked the alumni about signage for the building, specifically how they would want to name the building. 

“We don’t mind having some real significant signage, not just attached to the building or maybe separate, just like we did with Warren C. Crawley” said Echols.

The alumni suggested the renovated building could be named after James Russell Collins, the first principal of Montgomery County Training School, “since he had such a difficult time getting that gym built,” according to Dorothy Days.

Echols also asked the alumni if the college could name the building after the Training School and the gymnasium floor after a donor, a Black family in Montgomery County who offered a sum of money towards the renovation project. According to Echols, the potential donor has not committed the funds, so the need for the separate naming is uncertain even though the alumni accepted the reasoning.

No official decision on the name was made. The gym will receive temporary Brewton-Parker signage for insurance purposes until the renovation.

“We appreciate what Brewton-Parker is doing, because the gym was going down,” said Days. “It’s condemned now, and I was looking at the windows, and I was almost about to cry because that was one of the gyms that I played ball in. So, it means a lot to us.”

When asked, Dr. Hightower explained the school hoped to use the $148,000 in scholarship funds received from the exchange to support students who would otherwise not receive many scholarships despite their academic performance. Joynetta Rost suggested forming a criteria committee of alumni to decide how students can qualify for the scholarship funds.

Dr. Hightower also provided attendees with two coconut pies baked by Montgomery County’s current home economics students in homage to the pies used to supplement the Training School’s funding.

The Montgomery County Training School can trace its origins to the aftermath of the American Civil War. According to Betty McLendon, in the 1860s and 1870s, Black churches founded throughout rural areas formed the basis for local schools for Black children in the era of segregation.

“Wherever there was a group that built a church, they also built a school,” said McLendon.

In the early 1950s, schools in Montgomery County, then including what is now Toomes County and Wheeler County, began consolidating, with Mount Vernon servicing the northern part of the county and Uvalda servicing the south. According to McLendon, school buses were introduced to the area around this time.

The Montgomery County Colored High School would be built in 1956 to serve the county’s northern half of Black children, and a similar building was built in Uvalda for the southern half. The white school was known as the Mount Vernon-Ailey High School.

According to James Days, the Mount Vernon location educated children from first grade to twelfth grade, while the Uvalda location only taught up to the eighth grade. Children from the Uvalda school would be transferred to the Mount Vernon location beginning in the ninth grade.

In 1965, the schools would be renamed, with the white school gaining the Montgomery County High School name it holds in the present day and the Black school becoming the Montgomery County Training School. The Uvalda school would cease operation soon after and fully fold its students into the Training School.

Between 1960 and 1961, Principal James Russell Collins and Superintendent Paul Calhoun pushed for the construction of a gymnasium for the school.

“They brought the community together,” said Days.

The gymnasium would be built with a combination of prison labor and community support. Upon completion, the building would serve as the home of the school’s sports team, the Tigers, until the school ceased operations in 1970.

The Tigers achieved several athletic milestones during the school’s operation, with the girls’ basketball team winning the Georgia Interscholastic Association (GIA) Class B state championship in 1965 and placing second in 1969, and the school’s football team won the state championship in 1964.

The school had a notable track and field team which performed well in GIA events. Willie Nobles also presented the group a newspaper clipping detailing the Tigers had also won a district cage championship.

Montgomery County schools began desegregating during the 1967-1968 school year, four years after the passing of the Civil Rights act. The Montgomery County Training School remained in operation until 1970, when the county fully desegregated and students were moved to the Montgomery County High School.

The group will reconvene on December 3 to refine the school’s timeline and make further decisions on the scholarship and gym signage.