ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) —
Stephens-Lee High School was more than the “Castle on the Hill” or a place for learning.
“It was a community. It was a place where the teachers looked out for all of us. They taught us to be men and women,” Buncombe County Commissioner Al Whitesides said. “They prepared us for jobs we didn’t know we could have.”
Whitesides, a long-time community activist and retired banker, graduated from Stephens-Lee in 1962. Now, he and fellow graduates are preparing for a 100th anniversary of the school’s first graduating class in 1914.
A brief history of the school
Stephens Lee High School opened on the former spot of Catholic Hill High School, which burned in 1917. The students spent the next few years crowded into classrooms in a former sanitorium before funding was approved for a high school for Black students.
Stephens-Lee opened during the 1922-23 school year, the gothic-style building in the Valley Street neighborhood quickly becoming a center for Black culture, education and athletics throughout Western North Carolina.
The school was named for Dr. Edward S. Stephens, the Catholic Hill High School principal who was Asheville’s first Black principal, and Hester Ford Lee, a much-respected educator and the wife of former Catholic Hill High School principal Walter Lee.
It was the only secondary school for Black students in Western North Carolina for many years.
The first graduation wasn’t until 1924. And when the school closed in 1965, it left a legacy that continues today in its former students and teachers and part of its campus.
The teachers left their students with lessons that would last a lifetime. The campus, main structure and surrounding neighborhood were torn down to make way for urban renewal projects in the 1970s. The gym was converted into the Stephens-Lee Community Center in the 1970s.
The teachers
Whitesides said the teachers at Stephens-Lee were special.
“They were all good, but they were tough as nails. I hated them then, but boy I love them now,” he said with a laugh. “I had two or three teachers, they told me in ninth grade, ‘You can’t stop here, you have to go on to college.'”
Many of the students did. Whitesides said about half his class went to college.
“They may not have finished, but they went,” he said.
Another thing that set Stephens-Lee teachers apart was their education.
“I didn’t know about Stephens-Lee teachers until I was on the school board years later, but Stephens-Lee had more teachers with master’s degrees than any school in North Carolina,” Whitesides said.
Those advanced degrees came from out-of-state big-name schools.
“The state of North Carolina paid for them to go take courses in the summer,” he explained. “But they didn’t want them in state schools. It blows your mind the degrees they had.”
It was reported that in the year before the school closed, more than half of the faculty held master’s degrees.
A 100-year celebration
After the final class graduated in 1965, alumni continued to keep in touch, said Whitesides, who lived in the Stumptown area.
“We still meet to this day. A lot of us are still active in the community. That’s why Stephens-Lee is so special. We looked out for each other. The teachers looked out for us. It was just that way. It was a whole community. And I bet you every mom had a piece of my behind at one time,” he said with a laugh. “They looked out for all of us.”
The 100th anniversary of the first graduating class is coming up, and a big celebration is planned.
The reunion celebration “100 Years and Still Stepping (Let us Never Forget) the ‘Castle on the Hill’” is planned for July 5-7 at Stephens-Lee Community Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave., Asheville. Events will include a memorial service and Class Night on Friday; an official alumni meeting, banquet and dance on Saturday; and a cookout on Sunday.
Buncombe County commissioners passed a resolution marking the anniversary and declared July as Stephens-Lee High School Month.
“The Buncombe County Commissioners recognize the importance of Stephens-Lee and its alumni’s continuing contributions to the community to this day,” the proclamation states.
