Published: October 19, 2007 10:51 pm      

Old Middletown School rededicated for new mission

BEREA — The old Middletown Consolidated School on Walnut Meadow Road was rededicated for a new purpose Friday.

The four-classroom building that served blacks students from southern Madison County in first through eighth grades from 1927 until 1963, is now home to GEAR UP, which serves students in Madison, Estill, Lee, Jackson and Rockcastle counties.

GEAR UP, a federal program, administered locally by Berea College, is designed to help students from low-income families in grades six through nine to complete high school and go on to higher education, said Dreama Gentry, local director.

Middletown Consolidated closed after its students began attending integrated schools in 1963. The building, constructed with matching funds donated by Sears-Roebuck chairman Julius Rosenwald, served as a Head Start School and community center for a few years, but it had been unused for nearly 40 years, said local residents.

New life as a GEAR UP center is a fitting legacy for the building that had provided education to students denied many opportunities available to white students, said the Rev. Robert Blythe, who delivered the invocation for the ceremony. A cousin of Blythe’s, also named Robert, was the school’s principal throughout its 36-year existence.

“Education and progress is possible only with bridges,” said Berea College President Larry Shinn said, quoting his predecessor William J. Hutchins who spoke at the building’s 1927 dedication.

In its new role, the building is a bridge from the past to the future, he said.

Rosenwald followed a bridging strategy when he donated funds to help build hundreds of schools for black students throughout the South, Shinn said. “He provided only 50 percent of the $12,000 cost of this building, insisting that the rest come from black and white members the local community.”

Berea College donated land for the building. Edwin Embry, grandson of Berea College founder John G. Fee, was president of the Rosenwald Fund, Shinn said.

Rosenwald’s granddaughter was unable to attend Friday’s ceremony, but she sent a $2,500 donation and a photograph of her grandfather that joined other photos on the building’s walls to illustrate its history.

One teacher, Dorothy White Miller, and at least 10 former Middletown students attended the ceremony.

Miller, who lives in Richmond, said she took pride in seeing all of her former students become good citizens.

While it was common in schools of that era, Miller’s students at the rededication said she never resorted to corporal punishment.

In addition to academics, Middletown students learned manners and values, such as fair play and to help others, said Dr. Jacqueline Burnside, who teaches sociology at Berea College. Burnside recently published a book based on her studies of rural black communities in southern Madison County, including Middletown.

The consolidated school replaced two wooden school buildings near Berea, but it drew students from as far as Kingston and Peytontown, Burnside said. At the 1927 dedication, Matilda Gentry, who had taught at one of those schools said, “Thank God for salvation and thank the school board for consolidation.”

Betty Miller of Peytontown, who attended Friday’s ceremony, said three of her seven children attended Middletown School.

Middletown drew at least one student from Clark County. Sharyn Mitchell of Frankfort said she rode an L&N train from Winchester each week as a youngster and stayed with a great aunt in Berea during the week so she could attend classes at Middletown. It was far superior to school for black students in Clark County, her mother thought.

Anthony Kennedy of Louisville said he met and got an autograph from singer Pat Boone in the 1950s as he and a schoolmate picked up litter along the road in front of the school. Boone’s in-laws, Clyde “Red” Foley and his wife Judy, operated a store on Walnut Meadow Road not far from the school.

Kennedy has been an auditor for Nissan Motors for 10 years. The Eastern Kentucky University graduate was a Ford automobile dealer for 18 years after working 11 years for Ford Motor Manufacturing in Louisville.

A 54-inch, 3,500-pound bell which summoned students to class at Middletown has been returned to the school grounds. It was used in the college’s Phelps-Stokes Chapel from 1906 to 1916, until it was replaced by a set of chimes, then donated to the new school in October 1927. It was purchased by the Rucker family of Berea when the Middletown School closed.

Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 623-1669, Ext. 267.