THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Blairsville
Collegiate Institute
The Blairsville
Collegiate Institute held a good record for providing education for
youth of
the mountain region from 1905 through 1930.
Its twenty-five years of operation touched many lives for good
and
provided the impetus for many to pursue education beyond what the
boarding school
offered.
During the
school
year 1928 and 1929, my uncle, Dr. Norman Vester Dyer, served as
president of
Blairsville Collegiate Institute. In
publicity and the collegiate catalog he released that year, he had a
history of
the school. From his historical sketch,
I have compiled this account of the school.
About 1904 a
preacher named Rev. Theodore Swanson traveled through
Rev. Swanson
took
charge of
A meeting was
held at
Then in 1905
the
Twenty acres
of
land were donated in Blairsville for the school campus.
Colonel W. E. Candler and Colonel M. L.
Ledford were strong proponents of the school and gave of their time,
means and
energy to bring the school to fruition.
A building containing classrooms and administrative office was
the first
to be erected “situated on an elevated plain overlooking the little
town of
Mr.
J. T. Walker served as the first principal.
It was called
With
help from the Board and from Notla River
Baptist Association, a three-story dormitory building was erected in
1911. Instead of having to find
places to board in
town, the dormitory made it possible for several of the students to
live in
that facility.
In 1911, A.
E.
Brown, superintendent of the Board, reported that Blairsville
Collegiate
Institute had two buildings, five teachers and 233 students. Subsequent annual reports from the Home
Mission Board showed student enrollment of from 150 to over 200.
A 1916 report
listed faculty as H. E. Nelson, Mrs. H. E. Nelson, Miss Addie Kate
Reid, Miss
June Candler, Miss Etta Colclough and Mrs. Maud Haralson.
It was then the only high school in
Also included
in
the 1916 report on education in
Continuing in
his
Collegiate catalog of 1929, Dr. N. V. Dyer, president, wrote: “The
curriculum
is such as will prepare the boy and girl to enter the best colleges and
universities of the south. The faculty
consists of well-trained and experienced teachers who devote their full
time
and talents to their work.
“The
buildings
and equipment consist of a large main building and a dormitory. The dormitory is the most completely equipped
and architecturally arranged of any of its kind in the state. Any boy or girl wishing to obtain an
education at the least possible expense will make no mistake in
attending
Blairsville Institute.”
Many
students enrolled over the twenty-five years of the school. They studied, they went out to other
institutions and did well. Among those
who graduated and made a name in education were Miss Addie Kate Reid
and Miss
Dora Hunter (Mrs. Dora Hunter Allison Spiva) each of whom taught at the
Institute; Mr. Charles Roscoe Collins, teacher, administrator,
historian; Dr.
James M. Nicholson, who led in the transition from Blairsville
Collegiate
Institute to Union County High School when the facilities of the
Institute were
bought by the Union County Board of Education for $1,000 and the county
high
school began in the 1930 academic year.
Mountain
schools,
among which the Blairsville Collegiate Institute was a major one, had
their
distinctive place in the educational history of the area.
c2004 by
Ethelene Dyer
Jones; published Jan. 29, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville,
GA.
Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Updated August 23,
2009
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