Sardis School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Shelby County, students in this part of Texas had one school to call their own, and for a good while, that was the Hughes School, sitting about two point one miles to the east-northeast. They made that trip year after year, until 1917 rolled around and things changed.

That year, the W.R. Pickering Lumber Co. donated four acres of land to a trio of trustees, C.L. Fowler, R.C.

Hughes, and R.C. Squyres, and those men had a purpose in mind: Sardis School No. 37. By the end of that summer, a schoolhouse was standing right here.

A white frame structure, four rooms, grades one through nine, built and ready before the season turned. Now picture that. Families in this area went from traveling miles down the road to having their own place, their own school, right here on those four donated acres.

Inside those four rooms, children learned their lessons. Outside, they played ball. Baseball, basketball, volleyball, competing against other schools in the area, putting Sardis on the map the way schoolchildren do, one game at a time.

The school served this community all the way to 1956, when the district closed it and students began making the journey to campuses in nearby Center. A few years on, in the nineteen sixties, the schoolhouse itself was torn down. The white frame building, the four rooms, the grounds where those games were played, gone.

But the marker makes a point of saying this plainly: the lessons learned here remain in the memories of area residents. That's not a small thing. A building can come down.

Memory holds its ground.

What the marker says

Sardis School Students in this area attended the Hughes School (2.1 mi. Ene) until 1917. That year, the W.R. Pickering Lumber Co. donated four acres to trustees C.L. Fowler, R.C. Hughes and R.C. Squyres for Sardis School No. 37. A schoolhouse was completed at this site by the end of the summer. The white frame structure included four rooms and housed grades 1-9. Students participated in athletics, including baseball, basketball and volleyball, and competed against other area schools. In 1956, the district closed the school, and students began traveling to campuses in nearby Center. The schoolhouse was torn down in the 1960s, but lessons learned here remain in the memories of area residents. (2003)