Blevins Training School served Black students in Blevins, Arkansas. The emblem its alumni carry today reads 1939–1969 and “Keeping the Connection.” The story below follows “A Historical View,” the account provided by Mrs. Evelyn Cross-Burton, which traces how this community educated its children long before the school had a building of its own.
From a log cabin to a school of our own
- The beginning About twenty-five children gather in a one-room log cabin half a mile south of Blevins. One teacher, an eighth-grade graduate, made up the whole faculty; a chair, a teacher’s desk and rough benches furnished the room. Lessons covered reading, writing and arithmetic from the Webster Blue Speller and McGuffey Reader, and the term lasted two months.
- After the fire When the cabin burns, classes move to Emmanuel Methodist Church. Still seeking a better education, the students transfer to the Williamson School four miles east, and then to the Iron Spring School, which offers two classrooms, two teachers and a four-month term.
- 1928 The Iron Spring District builds a four-room Rosenwald school four miles southeast of Blevins on the Hope rural road, near Shorter Chapel A.M.E. Church. Blevins children ride a bus owned and operated by Mr. W. M. Cross.
- 1932 Members of the Blevins Board of Education rent one room from the Iron Spring District and agree to employ and pay a teacher. The first teacher they hire is Evelyn Cross Burton.
- 1940 Under Mr. A. B. Wetherington’s administration, a new school building is erected two miles south of Blevins on the Washington–Blevins rural road. As enrollment grows through consolidation, classrooms and buildings are added: Mt. Moriah, Oak Grove, McCaskill, Shiloh, Nolen, Antioch, Green Hill and Iron Spring schools join the Blevins District.
- 1939–1969 The years carried on the BTS emblem. Education develops rapidly under principals J. L. Taylor, E. D. Robinson, R. L. Wiley and A. M. Evans.
The people who built it
Mr. M. L. Nelson served as president of the Blevins Board of Education for more than 40 years. Mr. Glen Coker was superintendent when the first Blevins teacher was hired, and Mr. A. B. Wetherington succeeded him. School board presidents included Mr. J. J. Bruce, Mr. H. M. Stephens and Mr. P. C. Stephens.
Mr. R. W. McCracken, Mr. James S. Meaders and Mr. Norman Jones turned the dream of a new Blevins Training School into reality. The account singles out Mr. Jones for the careful, step-by-step way he carried out construction of the school plant.
Among the teachers remembered by name is Mrs. Irene Nesbitt, a well-known and much-loved instructor of Blevins Elementary.
Let us pause not, nor falter, our faith is in our hands.
Quoted by Mrs. Evelyn Cross-Burton in “A Historical View”
The original account
Download the original scan of “A Historical View” (PDF)
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