Catawba College Endowed Scholarship:

The Class of 1957 has established an endowed scholarship to Catawba College with preference given to students from the North Rowan area.  The scholarship is already endowed, but contributions to it will increase the value of the scholarship.  If any of Spencer graduates wish to participate, please send a gift to Catawba College and designate it to the Spencer High Class of 1957 Scholarship.

 

This web site is a gathering place for the good people who attended Spencer High School in the 1950s.  Here we can reminisce as well as renew old acquaintances.  If you have something to add to this site, please let us know.

A little of our history:  The first school in Spencer was started by Dr. W. L. Newsom in August of 1900.  He rented a small building next to the site that now houses the Municipal Building.  At the same time several subscription classes were held in the town, and there was a small school for the surrounding community located on U.S. 29 across from the present Owens-Illinois Co.  This school was known as the Smith Schoolhouse and was used in later years to hold Sunday School classes of the Oakdale Baptist Church before the congregation obtained its own building.

Spencer residents, realizing the need for more stable schooling, contributed $3,000 to build a schoolhouse.  This building was erected on the west wing site of the Spencer High School.  It consisted of three rooms and a small auditorium.  Miss Bessie Pearl Rendleman assisted Dr. Newsom in teaching a first year enrollment of 120 students who started classes in January 1901 in the town's first public school.  This was used until 1905 when it was replaced with one constructed of brick.  Because of the town's rapid growth and the marked increase in the number of pupils, an annex was added which housed Spencer's first high school in later years.  This building on the east side was added in 1913, and it was not until 1915 that it contained the first Spencer High School composed of the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th grades.  The 12th grade was added in 1944.

Soon after Spencer got its high school it became a member of the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools.  The school was also a member of the Accredited High Schools of North Carolina, having the rating of 1-A, the highest of ratings.  This meant that graduates from Spencer High School could enter any college or university in the South without having to take entrance exams.

The original brick building, after 19 years of soaking up floor polish and other cleaning materials, burned on a Sunday night, March 1, 1925, in one of Spencer's most spectacular fires.  It was immediately rebuilt. 

When the state took over the operation of all schools in 1935, the Spencer Schools were placed under the county school system.  It served pupils from Dukeville, Yadkin, Franklin, and Ellis Cross Roads. 

Spencer High School closed in 1958, and the athletic teams known statewide as the Railroaders became a thing of the past.