Did you know the George County Rebel mascot came about 60 years ago by a bunch of Panthers, Bulldogs, Tigers and Warriors? Yep, the 1964-1965 school year was monumental and the beginning of George County High School.
To commemorate the milestone, the first graduating classes were invited to a combined class reunion at Rocky Creek Catfish Cottage recently. About 170 graduates from 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1968 attended plus a few teachers. The event centered around catfish and conversation as a symphony of voices chatted away about their good ole days.
Doug Luce, GCHS 1965, said homeroom was the first time most classmates had ever met. “Most of us had never even seen each other,” he said. Luce played football and baseball. He said the football team had a very successful season that first year, “but it wasn’t easy. We would have been greater if we could have played together another year.”
The first game of the season was against the Brooklyn Aggies. George County won that game and ended its first football season with eight wins, two losses and one tie. The Rebels were named the DeSoto Conference Champions and won the Camellia Bowl.
It was that first group of consolidated high schoolers who chose the mascot and the maroon and white colors. Ronnie Miller, GCHS 1968, said the caliber of the students is what made GCHS what it was in the beginning. “There were people – mainly adults – who didn’t want to have a consolidated high school, and it was the kids who made it successful.” Miller is not only a former George County High School student, but also taught there and served as its principal.
Miller had attended Basin, which had six seniors in its last graduating class in 1964. “The boys at Basin would have never played football or baseball or had FFA opportunities. We didn’t have enough students for those things,” Miller said. Some other community schools were also small and only had enough students for a basketball team. Agricola and Rocky Creek were big rivalries always vying for the conference championship.
“Lots of people didn’t think we’d get along. For example, Rocky Creek and Agricola were totally opposed to each other. We slugged it out each year in football and basketball. Lucedale was in a different conference,” Rocky Creek native Robert Davis, GCHS 1965, said.
The George County fight song, carried over from Lucedale High School, is actually the fight song of Notre Dame University. Its rights are public to schools within the United States. Scott Hunter, who would have graduated in 1966 but transferred to Vigor High School after the 1963 football season, recollected about the song after a recording of it was played at the reunion.
“When I got to the Green Bay Packers, one of the players was singing the song, and I said that’s my alma mater’s song and he laughed. He said, ‘no man’ that’s Notre Dame’s song,” Hunter said. Hunter, legendary quarterback for University of Alabama, who went on to play eight seasons for several National Football League teams, was at the reunion because he grew up in Lucedale and attended school here but moved to Prichard in his teens and graduated high school there.
Eleana Turner, GCHS 1967, spearheaded the reunion effort with help from lots of friends. Audra Rouse, GCHS 1967, researched old issues of the George County Times and gave a history of the consolidation. A few highlights she mentioned included the fact that Agricola School had caught fire in August 1963. The 1963-1964 school year was delayed for Agricola and classrooms were created at Agricola Baptist Church and in parts of the school that had not burned.
During the time span from the school’s burning to the preparation for the 1964-1965 school year, several options about countywide facilities were addressed. One of those was to build a high school at Central to house Basin, Broom and Central students. However, the State Education Finance Commission would not approve financial aid for that proposal. Another idea was to issue a special tax to rebuild a school at Agricola. Yet, if the issue passed, the money could not be used for the high school because of state accreditation standards, but could be used to rebuild an elementary school at Agricola. Meanwhile, petitions were filed in the circuit court and chancery court by citizens objecting to the consolidation. The year was filled with controversy over the issue. In the end, Chancery Judge L.C. Corban of the 16th District denied the petitions and ruled the school board had not violated any law. Soon afterward the school board voted to proceed with consolidation, found state funding for construction and received confirmation that accreditation for all schools would be secure.
Ninth graders from across the county started at Lucedale School, now known as L.C. Hatcher Elementary. Tenth through 12th graders attended the school on the corner of Church and Mable Streets, now known as George County Middle School. Grades one through eight were housed at elementary schools in their respective communities. The current George County High School, located on Old Mississippi 63 South, opened the fall semester of 1994.
Happy 60th birthday to the George County Rebels.
