The building where I attended all 12 grades of public school was constructed in 1938. It was only 10 years old when I started school there in 1948. In the 1946-1947 school year, Shorter High School published a year book, its first in five years. It was dedicated to the memory of four alumni who made the supreme sacrifice in World War II. They were S/SGT Lewis Haden Rains (1920-1943); SGT James J. Jolley, Jr. (1924-1945); Harriet Engelhardt, (1919-1945); Seaman 1st Class W.C. Rodgers, Jr., 1924-1943) The number four does not sound large until one takes into account that the total enrollment in the 12 grade school was probably less than 100, and they were all born in a short span of five years. That yearbook provides the following history of the school:
“In 1895, Professor J. T. Boyd was principal of the first school in Shorter. In 1896 the unfinished McWhorter residence, along with twelve acres of land were bought, which is present site of the school.
In 1920 the Macon County Board of Education consolidated Shorter and La Place and the first school bus operated in Macon County transported pupils from La Place to Shorter. The same year Shorter High School qualified as an accredited school. Also in the same year, Milstead, Bradford and Union were consolidated with Shorter, and the following year the pupils from Downs were transported here.
In 1938 the old building had to be torn down and the present building, which is shown above, was constructed. This building cost $52,000. Mr. Ditmar of the State Department of Education, was the architect, and Mr. Henry I Flinn was the contractor.
The following have served as principals of the school consecutively: Prof. W. T. Boyd, Prof. Russel, Prof. Grogan, Prof. Ward, Prof. Little, Prof. George, Prof. W. T. Vann, Prof. Simmons, Prof. Shaw, Miss Dudley, Miss Northington, Miss Dudley, Miss Howard, Miss Torburt, Prof. L. L. Hill, Prof. J. M. Trotter, Mrs. B. W. Booth, Prof. H. C. Holstun, Prof. Ponder, Prof. Ward, Prof. R. C. Dopson and Prof. C. D. Barefoot.”
Faculty for the year 1946-1947 included Miss Ora Bryant, Commerce, Mrs. Steele L. Bibb, Mathematics, Mrs. C. D. Barefoot, Home Economics Science, Miss Mary DeBardeleben, English, History, Mrs. Rossie B. Pierce, First & Second Grades, Mrs. Ruby Duke, Third & Fourth Grades, and Mrs. Maurine R. Jolly, Fifth & Sixth Grades.
Betty Menefee, my future bride, and I began the first grade in the 1948-1949 school year, two years after that year book was published.
Steele L. Bibb, who was on the faculty in 1946-1947, the daughter of Dr. Philip Malcolm Lightfoot, who delivered Dale in 1942, had graduated from Shorter in 1926. My Daddy, Forrest Chandler Segrest, Sr., who was born in 1909, and the same age as Mrs. Bibb, was in the 7th grade in 1926. The motto of his class, in the “for what it’s worth department” was “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.” For the poor whites, school and education could still be difficult in those times, and Daddy did not attend school regularly. Daddy’s previous schooling had been at the school at Bradford’s Chapel, that merged into Shorter in 1920, but apparently there was no bus that carried him to Shorter in the intervening years. The above history mentions only a bus from La Place. He lived near the Bradford’s Chapel school, but eight or nine miles from the Shorter School. In the schools that merged into Shorter in 1926, there was likely a single, one room school teacher for all 12 grades. Mrs. Pierce, who taught Dale in the first and second grades at Shorter, had been Dale’s Dad’s teacher at the one room school at Bradford’s. Mrs. Jolly, about whom more is said in another essay, was the one room school teacher at Downs. The point: in an area of grinding poverty, with inadequate educational facilities and opportunities, progress was being made. The construction of the Shorter School in 1938 was a major community building event. It was not the product of wealth. But unfortunately, even in this cultural environment, similar Black schools lagged behind the white schools. The one room school at Bethel Grove, that was located a quarter of a mile from the one room Bradford’s school that merged with Shorter in 1920, was still in operation in the 1950’s. But in the 1950’s, the D. C. Wolfe high school was built for Blacks in the Shorter community, prior to the Civil Rights movement and the onslaught of Lee v. Macon, the lawsuit that forced integration in Macon County and all over Alabama.
These brief excerpts provide deep insight into the situations of the Shorter School that preceded Dale’s experience there. It was doing significant work for poor white students, and I will develop that theme in these essays, based on my personal experience.
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