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The old Searcy AR Junior High School.....High School? It burned several years ago.

By
Real Estate Agent with RE/MAX Advantage

Searcy High School

I admit that I am confused.  This says Searcy High School.  I remember it as Searcy Junior High, don't I?

When it burned, which I do think I remember, it was used as a Junior High.  Roger Dobbins contributed this photo and it looks as if the school was new at the time of the photo.

So the Searcy Sleuths can perhaps date this photo and tell me if the old High School became the Junior High.  In fact, I think I taught an art class on that upper floor somewhere back in the early 70's.  I do remember teaching when you had to open a window for air because the buildings did not have central heat and air.

It is a great picture, one way or the other.  Thanks, Roger Dobbins.

Comments (29)

Barbara S. Duncan
RE/MAX Advantage - Searcy, AR
GRI, e-PRO, Executive Broker, Searcy AR

Mary, you gave a great description of the building. 

Ludean, when I taught there was no central heat and air, nor a window unit.  I seem to remember the old pipe looking heaters in the winter. What did we call those things?

Jan 20, 2014 02:18 AM
Anonymous
Mary Dunn
Barbara, can't answer for Anita. Just know from previous postings they were not good friends to say the least. In all my years in the Searcy system both as a student and as a substitute teacher there was no AC in any buildings in any of the schools. Are you talking about radiators for heating?
Jan 20, 2014 02:37 AM
#11
Anonymous
Susan
I'm seeing Searcy Jr High School above the door...?
Jan 20, 2014 02:56 AM
#12
Don Thompson
Donthomp Associates - Sunnyvale, CA

Barbara, I can tell you what Anita's beef with Miss Lois was all about. She didn't teach us diddly about writing and that hurt us when we went to college. No themes, no essays, nada about writing.

Jan 20, 2014 03:06 AM
Barbara S. Duncan
RE/MAX Advantage - Searcy, AR
GRI, e-PRO, Executive Broker, Searcy AR

Susan, OMG!!  You are right.  It does have Searcy Jr High.  I am embarrassed and should go back and start all over???

Jan 20, 2014 03:14 AM
Barbara S. Duncan
RE/MAX Advantage - Searcy, AR
GRI, e-PRO, Executive Broker, Searcy AR

Mary, yes.  Radiators.  I couldn't think of the word. 

Jan 20, 2014 03:16 AM
Anonymous
Anita Fuller
Thanks to Don.....he knows how so many of us who went to college after having Miss Thornton for llth and l2th grade english ...... nearly flunked our college English courses. My husband, Bobby Scott, concurs with me in our dislike of Miss T. Of course, at the time, we didn't really care...it wasn't until later, when we were in classes with kids who had had decent English in high school. The first theme I wrote at Southwestern at Memphis (Now Rhodes College)....I got a D - -. in other words, F. I can remember it to this day, it was pathetic. And another reason we don't care for 'her'...she was in charge of our graduation on the football field, and wouldn't let us sing the Alma Mater. We went back years later, at a class reunion, and sang it.
Jan 20, 2014 03:32 AM
#16
Anonymous
Anita Fuller
Mary, maybe I need to back away from Miss Thornton: my memories of her just may be sending me to an early grave.
Jan 20, 2014 03:34 AM
#17
Anonymous
Mary Dunn
For many years after HS was a part of my distant past I had a recurring dream about trying to get up the stairs on the west side of the building and couldn't because part of the stairs were missing. Must have been afraid of something up there.
Jan 20, 2014 03:56 AM
#18
Barbara S. Duncan
RE/MAX Advantage - Searcy, AR
GRI, e-PRO, Executive Broker, Searcy AR

Anita, do back off.  You learned how to write perfectly once you decided to do so.  But why would she not let you sing on the football field?  Strange memories.

Mary, also strange!

Jan 20, 2014 08:58 AM
Barbara S. Duncan
RE/MAX Advantage - Searcy, AR
GRI, e-PRO, Executive Broker, Searcy AR

Anita, do back off.  You learned how to write perfectly once you decided to do so.  But why would she not let you sing on the football field?  Strange memories.

Mary, also strange!

Jan 20, 2014 08:58 AM
Anonymous
Lesa McFadden
The "new" high school opened in the 1968-69 school year, I believe. My sister graduated in 1969 and I believe that was the first class to graduate from there. I am not sure when it became the Jr. High, but when I started 7th grade in 1970, this is where I started. There was actually a building with a flat roof that was the seventh grade building. This was for 8th and 9th grades.
Jan 20, 2014 02:43 PM
#21
Barbara S. Duncan
RE/MAX Advantage - Searcy, AR
GRI, e-PRO, Executive Broker, Searcy AR

Lesa, thanks for those dates. 

Jan 20, 2014 08:15 PM
Don Thompson
Donthomp Associates - Sunnyvale, CA

Here's a pic of the rear exit of the Searcy High school taken in May of

1965. That's my son, John, riding a cousin's trike. My uncle Doyle lived across the street from the high school ayt that time. We were visiting from California.

John Thompson 1965 Searcy High School

Jan 25, 2014 11:31 PM
Barbara S. Duncan
RE/MAX Advantage - Searcy, AR
GRI, e-PRO, Executive Broker, Searcy AR

Great picture, Don.  And a cute, cute kid!!  Is the building on the side an auditorium, gym, or what?

Jan 25, 2014 11:50 PM
Anonymous
Harold Gene Sullivan
The building on the side is the auditorium, part of the high school building. There was an auditorium entry just to the right of where the picture cu ts off, but the main entry to the auditorium was inside the high school.
Jan 26, 2014 04:34 AM
#26
Anonymous
Paula

I went to Jr High here. I was in 8th grade in the fall when the school burned down. I believe this would have been 1978 or 79.

Jan 20, 2017 06:38 PM
#27
Barbara S. Duncan
RE/MAX Advantage - Searcy, AR
GRI, e-PRO, Executive Broker, Searcy AR

Paula, thanks for commenting. I had a child who went to school there too.  He took all kinds of pictures of the burned building.

Jan 21, 2017 04:58 AM
Anonymous
Sandy

My mother graduated from Searcy High in 1960 - in that building. I went there when it was Searcy Jr High & renamed to Ahlf Jr High. We had the same teacher....Mrs. Williams.

Jan 21, 2017 06:44 AM
#29
Barbara S. Duncan
RE/MAX Advantage - Searcy, AR
GRI, e-PRO, Executive Broker, Searcy AR

Sandy, that may have been Mrs. Ruby Williams.  She taught for a long time and put up with absolutely no nonsense!  She was tough and kids knew to behave in her class!

Jan 21, 2017 08:01 AM