Blanco High School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, some stories start with a bang, and some start with a charter. Blanco High School, it started with a charter.

The year was 1883, and somebody in Blanco County put pen to paper and made it official. But a charter's just a piece of paper until somebody starts laying stone. So they got to work, and out of white limestone, they built a schoolhouse right here on this very site.

By October of 1884, the doors were open and the kids were filing in. Now here's a detail worth sitting with. In those early years, Blanco High School wasn't running on one schedule.

It was running on two. A six-month public school term, and a ten-month private school term, both under the same roof. That's a particular kind of juggling act, and somebody had to keep all those balls in the air.

The school grew, the way schools do, through consolidation, through new buildings rising to match what the community needed. The land around Blanco is rural, and rural means spread out, and spread out means that for a lot of families over a lot of years, this school was the one that answered the call. It still is.

That white limestone schoolhouse started something in 1884 that, more than a century later, hasn't stopped.

What the marker says

Chartered in 1883, Blanco High School began as a combination private and public school. A white limestone schoolhouse was constructed at this site and opened for classes in October 1884. During its early years, Blanco High School offered a six-month public school term and a ten-month private school term. Over the years, the school has grown through consolidation, and new facilities have been built to match its growth. Throughout its history, Blanco High School has continued to meet the need for rural education in the surrounding area. (1984)