FINALS AT COLORED SCHOOL.

Statesville Colored Graded School Closed Tuesday Night with a Very Creditable Performance.

The closing exercises of the Statesville graded school were held Tuesday night in the new building. Before the exercises began at 8.30, a representative of this paper had the pleasure of looking thru the building and inspecting the most creditable exhibits of the work accomplished by the pupils of the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh grades. The exhibit showed surprising skill in drawing, sewing, fancy needle work and other forms of handiwork.

When the exercises began, the auditorium and two adjoining school rooms were filled, and the good order maintained was a noticeable feature.  The opening chorus and duet by members of the graduating class were much appreciated by the audience.

“Resolved: That girls are more expensive to raise than boys,” was the subject of the debate discussed in an interesting manner by Eugene Harris and Harry Chambers, on the affirmative, and Guy B.Golden and Jettie M. Davidson, on the negative.

GRADUATING EXERCISES.

Class History.      Buster B. Leach

Class Prophecy.   Annie B. Headen

Class Poem.      Willie D. Spann

Solo — ‘Be Still, O Heart.’   Thomas R. Hampton

Class Will.   Maurie Dobbins

Valedictory.    Louise Colvert

Class Song – ‘Fealty’

CLASS ROLL.

Mary Louise Colvert, Maurie Catherine Dobbins, Lillian Gennetta Moore, Willie DeEtte Spann, Buster Brown Leach, Annie Bell Headen, Thomas Richard Hampton, Eloise Earnestine Bailey.  

Class Motto – We Learn Not for School, But for Life.

The colored people of Statesville take great pride in their school.  They have a modern school building, steam heated and supplied with the latest equipment, something which very few towns and cities of the State have provided for its colored population.  C.W. Foushee, the principal, has proven himself to be a good school man.  He is assisted by eight teachers.

— Statesville The Landmark, 7 June 1923.

Louise went up to New Jersey and finished high school.  They didn’t have a black high school in Statesville.  They just had tenth grade.  And she went to Jersey and finished high school in Jersey and then took a course in teacher’s education somewhere.  I don’t know whether it was Winston-Salem or Salisbury.  And then she taught at – Louise played an organ, I mean, she could play the piano. Yeah, she was just as smart as she could be.  And she not only could teach, but she was musical. And she had heard she could get a job anywhere because she could do that.  And I know Golar used to teach school, but Louise would do her commencement exercise for her.  She would, Louise would do that, and they would have concerts.  Not concerts, but the whole county would compete.  And Golar’s thing would always bring a group of children, ‘cause Louise would teach them, you know. I don’t know, I can’t remember the name of that place.  But she had a school out there.  Williams Grove. And Louise used to do all the playing for that school, and they would ask her to prepare them for the thing. They had these county somethings.  But it involved the whole county.  The schools were all over Iredell County.  And they would come together, and they would, it would be a big march, and then they would meet somewhere in particular, and then they would compete with the groups of singers and everything like that.  And, child, when Louise started that stuff, when she started teaching, she had groups singing – young people and the older people, and then Golar would take her to her school and get her to teach her children.