Jonathan Fredin
History Remembered Holly Springs commemorates beloved elementary school Written by Emily Uhland
THE HISTORICAL MARKER HONORING HOLLY SPRINGS ROSENWALD SCHOOL WAS ORCHESTRATED BY A PASSIONATE TEAM OF COMMUNITY MEMBERS, TOWN OFFICIALS AND FORMER STUDENTS. PICTURED ABOVE ARE: PASTOR JAHMAR COBB, MATT SCIALDONE, RANDY HARRINGTON, DORIS BATTLE, RENNIE THORPE, VICTORIA JUDD, CHRISTINE KELLY, GERALD D. GIVENS JR, MAYOR DICK SEARS, ANGIE STAHELI ANDRANDY HARRINGTON NOT PICTURED: ANN HUNT-SMITH, GERALD HINTON, GEORGE KIMBLE, REGINALD HINTON, TANYA DENNISM, FLORIANNA THOMPSON
46 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2021
Holly Springs recently installed a new signpost commemorating a historic elementary school that served the community for more than 50 years. This special event may not have occurred without an accidental mix up between two men named Randy Harrington. The Holly Springs Rosenwald School, later named Holly Springs Elementary School, stood on the site of the W. E. Hunt Recreation Center from the 1920s to the 1970s. Rosenwald schools were created to combat underfunding in education of African American children, a program developed by Booker T. Washington and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, resulting in about 5,000 schools in the segregated South. Originally a wooden plank schoolhouse, the Holly Springs structure was replaced by a brick building around 1950 and renamed Holly Springs Elementary School. Local historian Doris Battle attended the primary school before it closed in 1970, but never knew about the Rosenwald school that came before it. “I was looking in the book that Barbara Koblich had written (“Images of America: Holly Springs”) and oh my goodness, my
