Purchase a Paver
Members of the public can buy pavers for the site of the former Consolidated School. A paver with a one-line message is $25, while a three-line custom message is $40. The school will take orders for the pavers until December.
Maggie Mobley poses at the commemorative program for the Oglethorpe County Consolidated School, which is now Oglethorpe County Primary School, on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. Mobley was a student at OCCS, and later served as the secretary. Mobley planned the event to commemorate OCCS. (McCain Bracewell/The Oglethorpe Echo)
More than 350 past teachers, students, staff and family members gathered to remember the former Oglethorpe County Consolidated School, now Oglethorpe County Primary School, on Sept. 28.
“Because the school building is going to be torn down, and we wanted something just to commemorate the fact that it was here and that we loved it so much,” Maggie Mobley said. “It’s just a sad thing to see it go, but we know, in the interest of progress, we make things happen like this.”
Mobley, a former student and secretary at the Consolidated School, organized the event in the OCPS lunchroom. Speeches, dinner and music commemorated the building that from 1955-70 consolidated more than 20 schools for rural, Black students in Oglethorpe County.
“Not only the building, but those who taught here and live here because this building meant so much to us, because it was a step up from the one-room schools that we went to,” Mobley said. “There were days when I had to walk to school and there were Jack Frost sticking up out of the ground. It was so cold. So, this school brought about a change from all of that. This is why it’s such a bittersweet story.”
The event began with a tour of the school and a welcome to all the previous faculty, staff and students. After singing Oglethorpe County Consolidated School’s alma mater and a blessing, dinner was served, and teachers and students were invited to stand and reflect on their time at the Consolidated School.
The celebration ended in music and dance. Mobley said Eddie Robert Smith sponsored the event.
Now, a memorial site is planned to mark the historic school when it’s demolished as part of phase II of the new Oglethorpe County Elementary School construction.
In 2022, Superintendent Beverley Levine said she met with the Concerned Men of Oglethorpe County and invited all clergy from Black churches in the county to discuss how to commemorate the school.
The group decided on a commemorative pavilion with engraved pavers, using bricks from the school. There will be a brick for every graduating class and individuals are able to buy a personal brick.
The pavilion is scheduled to be completed in January 2025.
Also, Levine said they plan to turn the wall of bricks in OCPS decorated by students who moved to a new school during integration into a bench at the new school.
A home for students
From 1868-1954, Black students attended one and two-room schools, mostly at churches, scattered across Oglethorpe County. Few schools offered classes past the eighth grade or had college-educated teachers. Most buildings had no electricity, heating or indoor plumbing, and supplies were limited.
Oglethorpe County Consolidated School had 1,100 students and 41 classrooms when it opened in 1955. It taught all ages, up to 12th grade.
It remained open for Black students until Oglethorpe County schools were integrated in 1970.
Marion Adkins was in first grade when the school opened. Before Oglethorpe County Consolidated School, he walked almost an hour to Clarke Grove Baptist Church for school.
“It felt good because I didn’t have to walk no more,” Adkins said.
Adkins graduated from Oglethorpe County Consolidated School in 1967 and joined the military for four years before becoming a long-haul trucker.
Betty Brown Williamson was one of the few past teachers at Oglethorpe County Consolidated School to attend the ceremony. She taught fifth grade in 1968 before becoming the first Black teacher at Athens Technical College in 1969 where she was head of its business department.
“It's just a blessing to be here to get to see students I have not seen probably in 40 years,” Williamson said.
She used her certification in journalism to help the senior class of 1969 create the school’s first yearbook.
The co-editor of the yearbook, Joyce Smith, still has her copy, and Williamson and Smith shared a moment while reading through it.
One page in the yearbook is titled, “Our Principal — Mrs. Mamie S. Dye.”
“She was a person who really cared about all of her students,” Mobley said.
Mobley said Dye offered to pay for two years of business school for Mobley if she came back to work at the school with Dye. Mobley worked as Dye’s secretary for eight years.
“I'm forever grateful to her,” Mobley said. “She's passed away now, but that started my whole career. My lifetime career was based on the training that she paid for for me to get well, that is, I'll never forget it.”
The program recognized administrators, teachers, staff and each graduating class that attended Oglethorpe County Consolidated School and the graduating classes who transferred to Oglethorpe County High School after integration. It was a mini-reunion for some graduating classes — like the class of 1975, who had almost 20 members at the event.
“Although this physical building will be demolished, the memories that we share here will continue to last for the rest of our lives,” Vivian Colbert Chester, who gave the opening speech, said. “So for this occasion, we have come together to reflect and honor the legacy of this school and the great achievements and lasting friendships that were made in the lives of everyone here at OCCS.”