The Gaston County Public Library Digital History Collection now has a history of Highland High School titled A Magical Romance for Any Season. The history includes photographs of the various school buildings with notes about the Teachers and Administrators of the school.
A Magical Romance for Any Season, Highland High School, Gastonia, North Carolina, 1887-1966 "A Brief History" with Pictures and Notations. Factual Information Pertaining to our Beloved Alma Mater, The Highland High School. September, 1992. George W. Miller, ed.
The Highland School had its beginning in Leeper’s Chapel Church (later known as Third Street Presbyterian Church) and was commonly called “Leeper’s School.” The school was “not a part of the state and city school systems” but was supported by the church and governed by a trustee board. (Magical Romance, p.7)
As part of the Gastonia School District, a publicly funded four room brick structure was built in 1901 on Dallas Street (later renamed North York St.) and had twelve rooms added in 1922.
Colored School (Highland School) Sanborn Map Gastonia, Gaston County NC May 1908 (ProQuest Digital Sanborn Maps)
ProQuest Digital Sanborn Maps ~ Map of Gastonia June 1922 Sheet 15 (ProQuest Digital Sanborn Maps)
This 1926 photograph of the “Colored Elementary and High School in Gastonia, North Carolina” shows the three story brick building “stuccoed (or cemented) and painted white” (Magical Romance, p.10).
The Highland School. (North Carolina Digital Collections: Sesquicentennial International Exposition Photographs)
Principal Rev. J. A. Rollins worked to offer courses for grades seven through ten and held the first high school ceremony at the school in 1926 with nine graduates receiving certificates, but no diplomas. (Magical Romance, p.13)
High School Principals' Annual Reports, 1925-1926, Gaston to Guilford County IMAGE 5 (North Carolina Digital Collections)
When the first complete high school was established in 1929, the Highland Elementary School was renamed Highland High School. This was the initial year of continuous accreditment for Highland with approval by the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States. (Educational directory of North Carolina by North Carolina. Dept. of Public Instruction, 1953-1954)
Pictures from the past (Highland Elementary School, first grade, 1942) Biblioboard.
A new Junior Senior High School building was built in 1955 on a 20-acre tract. Mr. Thebaud Jeffers, who started as Principal of Highland High and Elementary School on York Street in 1940, continued as Principal of the new school on the corner of Doffin Lane Hill and N. Morris Street. The school opened on August 31, 1955 with 21 Teachers and 568 Students attending grade level seven through twelve. Highland Elementary remained at North York St. (Magical Romance, p.16)
A Magical Romance for Any Season, Highland High School, Gastonia, North Carolina, 1887-1966 "A Brief History" p. 18
According to the Gaston Gazette, “The Class of 1966 was the last class to graduate from Highland High School as it merged with Frank L. Ashley at the beginning of the 1966-67 school year.” (Class of 1966 celebrates 50th reunion, The Gaston Gazette, August 28, 2016, p.E2)
Mr. George W. Miller, editor of A Magical Romance for Any Season, graduated with honors from Highland High School in 1936 and returned to Highland as a Teacher between the years 1941 and 1961. He entered the Army in May 1944. His first Principalship, in 1961, was with Green Bethel High School, a rural school in Boiling Springs, Cleveland County. He started in 1964 at the Joseph Charles Price Junior-Senior High School in Salisbury, Rowan County. Miller returned to Gastonia after the consolidation of the Gaston County and the Gastonia City Schools in 1968, where he became the first Black Assistant Principal at Ashley High School. (Assistant Principal for Ashley, The Gastonia Gazette, April 16, 1968, pB1; Slow Change: A Gaston educator has seen discrimination gradually fade away, The Gaston Gazette, December 7, 1991, p20)
George Miller was interviewed at his home in Gastonia on January 19, 1991. He discussed his experiences as a Teacher and Principal during public school desegregation in North Carolina. (Oral History Interview with George Miller, January 19, 1991. Interview M-0015. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).)
Mr. George W. Miller, French Teacher, as he appeared
in The
Ram, the 1961
annual yearbook for Highland High School in Gastonia, NC. (DigitalNC)
Highland School of Technology mural commemorating the Old Highland High School (Beta Club Candlelight Induction Ceremony, Auditorium, Sept. 26, 2019)
For more information about African-American education in Gaston County, North Carolina, you can visit the Education section of Digital Gaston County, North Carolina.
Brian Brown, Librarian, Local History &
Genealogy
