News

Flat Rock High School to mark history

By Bill Moss, Published: October 1, 2013

FLAT ROCK — Green River native and nationally renowned author Robert Morgan will speak, alumni can thumb through a book listing every graduate from 1925 to 1960 and all can join hands and sing the alma mater when people gather to celebrate the old Flat Rock High School on Saturday.

The Flat Rock High School marker dedication features a talk and reading by Morgan, whose most recent novel, "The Road from Gap Creek," is a sequel to his national bestseller and critically acclaimed novel "Gap Creek." The new book includes a chapter about the narrator, Annie, and her performance in the annual play at Flat Rock High School.
Morgan attended Flat Rock High School for its last two years, then attended East Henderson High School.
"He got into trouble with a physics teacher because he knew more about physics than the teacher did and he tried to get him expelled," said Mitchell Osteen, who will introduce Morgan.
The event will also include historic photos of the school, school memorabilia and a tribute to E.L. Justus (1900-1994), who was principal from 1932 to 1960 and then served as EHHS principal for its first nine years. At Flat Rock High School, Justus "was an administrator, teacher, record keeper, secretary, basketball coach and substitute bus driver and janitor," the committee's tribute said. "He kept the pot-bellied stove fire going ... His favorite punishment was having students collect acorns and litter into wastebaskets."
Other speakers are schools superintendent David L. Jones, School Board member Rick Wood and longtime teacher and Flat Rock Middle School principal Boyce Whitmire.
The Flat Rock recognition is part of a series of history commemorations sponsored by the Henderson County Education History Initiative. Previous events have honored the school history of the Mills River and Edneyville communities and Rosa Edwards School, which was built in 1912 and is now the school system's administration building.

Flat Rock High School Historic Marker Celebration
Saturday, Oct. 5
2-4 p.m.
Flat Rock Middle School
Emcee: Charles Thomas
Speaker: Robert Morgan