Blue School 1918

"The Blue School, named for the bright blue paint that the first directors applied to it, was one of the 36 one-room school houses that blossomed on the Clay County landscape around the year 1886.  The original location was on the old sand road to Moark that wound around the old Taylor and Smith farms.  As new farms were cleared and settled, the first site was so distant from the home of the majority of the patrons that the structure was moved around 1910 to an acre of ground donated by J. M. Oliver on the corner of the Oliver farm.  The site is now occupied by the New Home Methodist Church.

"The photograph made at the front door of the Blue in 1918 features Miss Iris Boyd as the teacher.  Identification of the pupils, front row, seated left to right, Ora Pringle, unidentified, Josie Talkington, Irma Smith, X, Jimmie Smith, X, James Hinkle, Otis Richardson, X, Oscar Richardson, X, Johnnie Richardson, Louis Yates, Margarette Smith, Carl Crafton and X.  Third row - Edgar Pond, Arvil O'Neal, Charlie Dell, Charlie Mulhollen, Delmar Dell, Homer Dunlap, Daniel Snodgrass, Emmaline Hinkle, Cecil Talkington.  Fourth row, Everett Yates, Morris Gentry, Dunlap, Robert Talkington, Mary Hinkle, Edna Mulhollen, X, Dunlap, X and X.  (X means unidentified)"

Submitted by Danny Moore