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FROM 18 for latch-key kids, and provide counseling on problems such as teen pregnancy, alcohol and drug abuse. They'd like to reopen the 500- seat auditorium for gospel sing ing, plays and small conventions. They'd like to restore Clover’s old black school as a neigh borhood center. “When we were children and we didn’t know anything, it was here to offer us an education,” said Willie Phillips, president of the Roosevelt Alumni Associ ation. “Now, it’s over here wait ing for us to give back to it.” Clover just opened a new rec reation center, Phillips said. But it’s on the town’s east side. “We have to go across town or out of town. We're trying to do something over here. This is our history. This is part of our heri tage. We need to do everything we can to preserve and protect it,” Phillips said. Roosevelt High School opened as the Clover Colored School in 1926, on the town’s west side. Also called McKnight High School, it operated as the town’s black school until 1970. It closed in 1990 as the Clover Middle School. After the closing, Phillips among others often visited the old school grounds that sit in the middle of the west side commu nity. “Yellow jackets, bees and rocks and glass, this area was so torn up and battered,” he said. One Sunday, he showed up at the old school in a suit, sizing the broken windows with a measur ing tape. “The Lord had already shown me what to do,” Phillips said. Phillips, 40, a tax accountant, approached the Clover school district about using the old school. He approached a defunct al umni association that had held a reunion in the 1980s. He re cruited a core of 20 alumni, with the support of as many as 200 more. The Clover school board hasn’t decided yet what to do with the old school. Asbestos and other problems make any renovation or sale difficult and expensive. Whether or not the alumni as sociation would get part of the school, “that’d just be something that we'll work out somewhere down the road,” said Coit McCarter, board chairman. In 1992, the association held a first money-raising banquet in the refurbished cafeteria. Satur day, it holds its second banquet. Organizers expect 225 to attend, including former teachers, stu dents and friends. “I know how hard the teachers worked. They cared. They really cared. They didn’t stop caring when I left school,” said alumnus Dot Guthrie of Gastonia. “I think we owe that back to the commu nity. “Roosevelt is a living legacy,” she said. “Restoring it as a community center would always give us something to come back to, a sense of pride, to say that this school belonged to us. “That’s our identity in that area.” Ms. Guthrie, Lingerfeldt Ele mentary media specialist, will speak at the Saturday banquet at 7 p.m. Donations are $5. For more information, call 1-803-222- 7976 or 1-803-222-9945.
Newspaper Details
The Gaston Gazette
Gastonia, North Carolina, US
Thu, Feb 25, 1993
Page 21
Full Page
Clipped by
African A.
USA 27 Jun 2026
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