Kemper County Agricultural High School - Yearbook (Scooba, MS)

Page 8 text:

8 KEMPER COUNTY AGRICULTURAL an opportunity of a high school education at a minimum cost, and to return them to you with an ambition to be and do something in life--to be producers of wealth and not par- asites on society. We beg you to remember that the school' is yours, supported by you, and that in maintaining your Agricultural High School you offer to your children an equal opportunity in life with others and arouse a hope in the heart of the poor boy and girl that never existed before. History and Present Status of School For the last twenty years the progressive educators have known that our system of education has been too tradi- tional-that our education appealed chiefly to professional life and the practical side of life was neglected. They de- plored the fact that Southern youth could not do with his hands-that he rather looked down on manual labor as menial, and that the ambition of the country youth led to the professions or to those callings which lured him from coun- try life. They knew that if the resources of Mississippi were conserved and developed by her sons, if rural life-the hope of the nation-was preserved, there must be injected into our school system an agricultural and home-making spirit. The result was the enactment of the law establish- ing the County Agricultural High School-a school that oifers to the country boy and girl an equal opportunity and equipment for life which his more favored urban cousins enjoy: a school that dignifies labor, and recognizes that the man in overalls can be as intelligent and as worthy of re- spect as the merchant, banker, professional man or anybody else-a school that gives to the state a citizenship educated in this true sense, having heads to think with, hands to do with, hearts to purpose with, and souls to adore God and Nature. The Kemper County Agricultural High School was estab- lished under an Act of the Legislature of 1910, which au- thorizes the School Board of any County to locate such a school, and requires the Supervisors of the County to make

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,wg ,,l, , ,,, .,,,.,.- .... . ..--.....,.W.....,.,,..-'---f-'-- ANNOUNCEMENT , In sending out announcements for our.fifth session, we feel like it is our first duty to express our appreciation to those boys and girls who, by their loyal support and studious application, have contributed so much to the success of the past session. It has always been our idea that the success or failure of a school depended in a great measure on the character of the boys and girls who make up the student body of that school. We appreciate the hundred and twelve pupils sent us by a generous public, and only hope that your sons and daughters have carried back to your homes what they left behind them-memories of a pleasant and well-spent session. We cannot refrain from expressing our appreciation to our fel- low townsmen for the interest manifested in the comfort and welfare of the boys and girls sent in our midst as pupils. Your solicitude that their stay among us might be pleasant, your hospitable welcome 'extended them, your exertions that there might be nothing except that which is pure and en- nobling in the environment of the Agricultural High School -4.how that the Board of Education made no mistake when they entrusted the future of the Agricultural High School to your care. We feel especially grateful to the people of Kemper County for the financial support given to the County Agri- cultural High Schoolu The one mill tax support fund, and ten thousand dollars' dormitory fund, with which you have taxed yourselves, demonstrate that you recognize the fact that the intelligence, progress and morals of a community are measured by the support that it gives church and school. In appreciation of your sacrifices, it will ever be the effort of those in authority to use the funds economically and judiciously, to give the boys and girls of Kemper County

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H: . HIGH SCHOOL, SCOOBA, MISS. , 9 a levy sufficient for the proper maintenance of the school when located. The State, on its part, agrees to appropriate from 351,500 to 352,500 a year to each school meeting re- quirements. 1 Taking advantage of this offer of the State, and realiz- ing the need of better school advantages in the county, the Kemper County School Board established the school in 1911, too late to open the school before the next year. They located the school at Scooba, that town having offered build- ings, land and cash aggregating in value S15,385.00, suiii- cient to meet all legal requirements for the location of the school. ' The property offered by the Town of Scooba comprized one hundred and fifteen acres of agricultural land, valued at 825.00 an acre, buildings, furnishings and campus of Scooba High School, valued at S5,500, and cash subscription notes to the sum of 37,010 for the- building of a dormitory to fill legal requirements. These were turned over to the trustees by the Town of Scooba. Varying from the original plan, in order to provide for future growth, the trustees, with the funds placed at their disposal by County and State, remodeled the old school building for a girls' dormitory, erected an 38,000 academic building, purchased a seventeen-acre farm situated in the midst of the school property, and especially valuable to the school to furnish cleared land and a house to supplement dormitory facilitiesg bored a 1,300-foot well to furnish an abundance of pure water, furnished these buildings as needed, rented additional rooms, and operated the school nine months the first session. Through the generosity of the people of Kemper County, these accommodations have been increased. There was thrown open at the beginning of the session of 1914-1915 a commodious, three-story, brick building, neat, modern and well-fitted for its purposes. Owing to the lack of funds, the third story is not completed, but with the thirty-two rooms that are finished we are able to care for sixty-four boys,