[email protected]
The anger in Jonesville and Lockhart over the loss of their high schools has faded with time, but the sense of loss still lingers.
“Friday night football was the main event up there,” Lockhart business owner Bernice Canupp said.
Games were major social gatherings, with residents in both towns coming out to cheer on the Wildcats and Red Devils. School events were supported by the whole community.
But that ended 10 years ago, when the high schools in Jonesville and Lockhart were combined with Union High School to form Union County High.
The decision to consolidate was a divisive one. Many residents of the two communities argued the move would hurt their towns and rob them of a piece of their identity.
The two high schools were estimated to need somewhere in the range of $13 million in repairs. Consolidating the three high schools would save about $1 million annually, the Union County School District estimated.
In the end, economics prevailed, and most residents came to accept the change. But many still miss the institutions that helped bring everyone together.
'A tough decision'
The vote came in March 2007.
“It goes without saying that there was a feeling of loss in the Jonesville community as well as the Lockhart community. Those schools were an important part of the fabric of Union County,” said David Eubanks, who served as Union County's interim superintendent about a month after the vote. “It was a tough decision and it was an emotional decision.”
Consolidation came down to money, he said. Renovating the two high schools would have been costly, and enrollment was declining at all three of the county’s high schools.
“The school board did make that decision, in my opinion, just months before they probably would have had to make it because of the economic downturn,” Eubanks said.
After the 2006-07 school year, 364 Jonesville High students and 117 Lockhart High students became part of the consolidated Union County High School, according to S.C. Department of Education records.
Elementary and middle school students continue to use the Lockhart High building. Even before consolidation, all grade levels shared one facility, but because the lower grades don't require as much technology and lab space as the high school would have needed, the district has been able to focus funds on maintenance.
Jonesville High now houses the town's municipal complex, but still bears banners and logos with the school's old colors and Wildcat mascot.
Current Union County Superintendent Bill Roach said while the decision has come to be accepted by many, it remains an "open wound" for some residents.
“What happened then was, you’re shutting a page of history for a lot of those folks,” he said.
Small town voices
Bernice Canupp owns Lockhart Café, one of only a handful of businesses operating in the town limits.
“I hated it,” Canupp said of the consolidation effort.
Lockhart Café is surrounded by old mill houses that have outlived the mill that was once the heart of the community.
In 1994, Milliken & Co., the town’s major employer, pulled out. Since then, new development has come slowly.
Recently, a Dollar General — referred to by some as “mini Walmart” — was built on the outskirts of town. Rounding out the local businesses are Bailey’s Café, another small restaurant, and two gas stations.
A grocery store, pharmacy or doctor’s office are at least a 20-minute drive away in either Union or Chester County.
In front of the old mill pond, a painted red wall reads, “Welcome to the Beautiful Town of Lockhart.”
“Now, there’s really nothing here,” said Lockhart resident Ronnie Swanger as he passed a recent afternoon fishing at the pond. “It’s just a little forgotten mill village now.”
Swanger, a 1965 Lockhart High graduate, has lived in the town all his life.
“We had our own school, our own teachers," he said. "When I graduated, we only had about 17 seniors."
A 15-minute drive down Highway 9 from Lockhart is Jonesville, a larger and less centralized town.
Jonesville has more residents and businesses than Lockhart, but shared its feelings about consolidation.
Kolby Gage, a lifelong Jonesville resident, was in the school’s final graduating class in 2007. He said he didn’t think much about consolidation at the time. A decade later, he said he’s proud to have been part of history.
“There’s never another class coming from that building,” he said. “It’s part of the culture, even still today.”
Losing an identity
A lingering sore spot for Jonesville and Lockhart residents is how the consolidation plan was executed.
When the high schools were combined, school trustees decided to keep Union High's Yellow Jackets mascot at Union County High. That upset residents who had supported a plan proposed by a group of students, teachers and community members that would have created a new mascot, the Wolfpack, and new school colors to go with the new name.
But school trustees said redoing the signs at the school and elsewhere in the county would cost too much.
“I was disappointed in the way they did that,” lifelong Lockhart resident Gerald Gregory said.
Gage agreed.
“If they were going to combine the schools, they should’ve had a new mascot,” he said. “They shut down Jonesville, they shut down Lockhart, and just made Union bigger.”
Coming together
Some efforts were made to honor the connection the two last high school classes in the Jonesville and Lockhart buildings felt to their old schools.
The Jonesville and Lockhart high classes of 2008 and 2009 were allowed to be academically ranked with both Union County High students and with the Jonesville and Lockhart high groups, respectively. For two years, three high school valedictorians were recognized in Union County.
Students also could choose a transcript bearing the name of Union County, Jonesville or Lockhart high school.
“When it was all said and done, people wanted it to work,” Eubanks said. “And, over time, those people are the reason it worked.”
Eubanks understands why residents were upset. He said he told district staff to be ready to listen to people's concerns.
“We had to have empathy for those folks who had a sense of loss. A sense of healing had to be there,” he said. “The administration, the school board, everyone had to be a good listener. You weren’t going to talk anyone into understanding or accepting the schools were closed.”
A Cowpens High School graduate, Eubanks is no stranger to consolidation. He became principal of Broome High School one year after Spartanburg School District 3 merged Cowpens and Pacolet high schools.
Community members more readily accepted that consolidation because the new school was a fresh start with a new name and mascot, Eubanks said.
“I didn’t disagree with them. I tried to approach it like, ‘I know exactly what you’re talking about. I know those schools are a big part of your community,’” he said. “I think the greatest concern I heard was, ‘We will lose our identity.’ I said, ‘Try to help develop a new identity with that Union County High School.’ I feel there has been an attempt to do that, and just by virtue of the fact I didn’t hear anyone say the consolidation was a problem the last time I was down there, I think a lot of people did that.”
Acceptance
Even though the high school is gone, Gregory said he remains proud of Lockhart schools.
“We all still love and support that school and try to go to about everything they have,” Gregory said.
Students from Lockhart have benefited from going to Union County High, and have more opportunities there now than they would have had at the old school, Swanger said.
“I really didn’t like it to start with, but I really think it’s a good thing now,” he said.
There was also no way the district could've sustained three high schools in the long run, given the declining enrollment, aging facilities and small tax base, Eubanks said.
Roach said in the decade since consolidation, the district has worked hard for its students and its residents. The district has increased the programs offered at Union County High to accommodate students from across the county.
Gregory said while he thinks the process should’ve been handled differently, the bitterness many once felt has long since disappeared.
“You’ve got some with grudges from the start, but it has been good for the kids,” he said.
Eubanks said that sentiment is what has ultimately prevailed.
“There are a lot of people who still have a lot of value for those two schools in their soul, and that’s not going away,” Eubanks said. “I think everyone has come to accept, to a great degree, that it was in the best interest of the students in Union County so they could be better provided for academically.”
803.466.6076
Service Areas
