Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School
Encyclopedia
Rabun Gap — Nacoochee School (RGNS) is a small, private college preparatory school located in Rabun County, Georgia
in the Appalachian Mountains
. It is both a boarding and a day school. It is notable for initiating the Foxfire
magazine project in 1966, experiential education
based on interviewing local people, and writing and publishing articles about their stories and oral traditions. This inspired numerous schools across the country to develop similar programs. In addition to its strong academic program, today it is one of two schools in the country to include a cirque
skills program in its curriculum. The students put on an annual performance.
, serving boarding and day students in grades 6-12. Located in Rabun Gap, the 1400 acres (5.7 km²) campus is cradled in the mountains of northeast Georgia. The school combines a strong academic program, mountain setting, and Presbyterian heritage to nurture and challenge students of diverse backgrounds as they prepare for college and a lifetime of service.
Andrew Jackson Ritchie, a Rabun County native, and his wife, Addie Corn Ritchie, founded the Rabun Gap Industrial School in 1905 to serve the children of the isolated and poverty-stricken community. With $1 and a personal note, Ritchie bought a 5 acres (20,234.3 m²) hilltop for the school. Construction began on the two-story main building, designed by Atlanta architect
Haralson Bleckley (son of Rabun County native Logan Bleckley), with pledges of cash support and manual labor. The school was open to both boys and girls.
Donations to the school declined during the World War I
(1917–18) period, but Ritchie traveled to Boston, Massachusetts, and New York City to solicit funding. He had a unique plan for expansion and development called the Farm Family Settlement Program. Whole families would live at Rabun Gap, with the men learning agriculture, the women studying homemaking and health care, and the children continuing with regular studies. The Carnegie Foundation
, the John D. Rockefeller
family, and other northern philanthropists provided generous support for his idea. However, it was Ernest Woodruff
, of the Coca-Cola Company and Trust Company of Georgia, who proved to be the bedrock supporter of Rabun Gap. According to school legend, Ritchie went door to door in Atlanta's Inman Park neighborhood asking for donations; at the Woodruff home, Emily Winship, Woodruff's wife, contributed money from her household fund and urged her husband to help. (Over time, several members of the Woodruff family, as well as the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, have made donations to the school.) With additional support from the United Daughters of the Confederacy
, the school expanded with more acreage and the construction of farmhouses and barns. The farm family program remained successful until the 1970s, when textile
manufacturing became key in Rabun County.
After a 1926 stove fire destroyed the school, Rabun Gap merged in 1927 with the Nacoochee Institute, founded in 1903 and formerly located in Sautee, Georgia. Headed by the Reverend John Knox Coit, the Nacoochee Institute was a boarding school for boys and girls as well as a public school for the students of White County
. Six weeks after Rabun Gap's fire, the schoolhouse of the Nacoochee Institute burned as well. In September 1928 the Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School opened at Rabun Gap with a new school building. Ritchie served as president and Coit as co-president.
In 1927 the new school established a covenant with the Presbyterian Church (later PCUSA), a relationship that still exists. In 1934 Ritchie and members of the board of trustees added two years of junior college to the Rabun Gap curriculum. Training teachers for the county was a main goal, and courses were patterned after those offered at the University of Georgia
. World War II
(1941–45) brought an end to the junior college program, as the war siphoned off enrollment.
The end of the 1930s brought numerous changes in leadership for Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School. Following the retirement of Ritchie and Coit, George Bellingrath served as president from 1939 to 1948. O. C. Skinner, former industrial manager of the Berry School in Rome, Georgia (founded by educator Martha Berry), was president from 1949 to 1956. Several buildings were added during Skinner's tenure, including the Addie Corn Ritchie Dining Hall, the Emily and Ernest Woodruff Chapel wing to Hodgson Hall, the Annie Lee Jones Library wing of Hodgson Hall, and the Arthur W. Smith Industrial Shop. From 1956 to 1984 Karl K. Anderson served as president. Under his leadership the Andrew Jackson Ritchie Gymnasium, the O. C. Skinner Natatorium, and four dormitory residence halls named for George Woodruff (son of Ernest), Irene Woodruff (wife of George), Ernest Woodruff, and Karl Anderson were built. Financial support also came from the Rabun Gap–Nacoochee guilds of Athens and Atlanta, the Rabun Gap–Nacoochee Club of Atlanta, and the Presbyterian Church.
In 1966 students in the English class started writing and publishing Foxfire
, a quarterly magazine with their articles based on their interviews with local residents about Appalachian culture. It was a project initiated by the teacher Eliot Wigginton
to engage students in learning to use proper English. It gained national attention after a collection of articles was published in book form in 1972 and became a surprise bestseller
. The magazine and book (followed by more) aroused people's interest in traditional crafts and skills at a time when some people were trying to live more simply.
Having partly functioned as a public school for students in the north end of Rabun County, Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School became fully private in the fall of 1977, as Rabun County consolidated its public high schools. The Foxfire project was adopted by the public high school, where it has continued.
Struggling financially with the loss of public monies, the school suffered from less stable enrollment and the need to reconnect with its core strengths from the past. Anderson retired as president in 1984, and his successors were the Reverend Bruce Dodd (1984–92), Robert Johnston (1992–96), and Gregory Zeigler (1996–2004). They moved to create a college-preparatory curriculum and enforce more rigorous admissions standards. A building program, funded in part by a bequest of George Woodruff, resulted in the Morris Brown Science Building, the Arts and Technology Building, a new library, and athletic fields.
From 2004 until 2011, John Marshall was the head of Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School and the school gained ground in a host of important areas, including enrollment, student support services, competitive athletics, alumni relations, board development, annual giving growth, and facilities and grounds upkeep. In July 2011, Dr. Anthony H. Sgro, became the tenth head of RGNS. Most recently, Dr. Sgro has served as the Assistant Head and Dean of Students at Woodberry Forest School in Virginia. With over twelve years of experience at this leading boys’ boarding school, Dr. Sgro has wide-ranging experiences in residential life including serving as a dorm parent and in external relations including admissions, marketing, and development.
The RGNS motto of "work, study, worship," is still dominant. Today, a small number of the college-bound students are the first generation in their families to attend college. Two-thirds of the students receive some form of financial aid. In fall 2010, there were 340 students (186 boarding students and 154 day students), and the school continued its historic commitment to financial aid, allocating $3.8 million dollars through the advent of Georgia's tax credit program coupled with the generosity of the school's constituencies and endowment interest.
program as part of the curriculum. They have an impressive array of apparatuses, including trapeze
, German wheel, aerial silks, lyra
or aerial hoop, Spanish web
, triple trapeze and much more. Annually in February, the school puts on a cirque performance, and is gaining international fame every year. They also have a climbing wall
for competition and to build rock climbing skills.
Ongoing events at Rabun Gap include Madfest and annual sporting events, as well as the student body crawling around the high school courtyard and the "front hill" area on their hands and knees, begging others to rescue them or put them out of their misery. Rabun Gap has six dorms: 1 middle school girls dorm, 1 exclusive senior dorm, 2 high school boys dorms (one of which is shared with middle school boys), 1 freshman girls dorm, and 1 sophomore-junior girls dorm.
Rabun County, Georgia
Rabun County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2000 census, the population was 15,050. The 2007 Census Estimate shows a population of 16,519...
in the Appalachian Mountains
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
. It is both a boarding and a day school. It is notable for initiating the Foxfire
Foxfire (magazine)
The Foxfire magazine began in 1966, written and published as a quarterly American magazine by students at Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, a private secondary education school located in the U.S. state of Georgia...
magazine project in 1966, experiential education
Experiential education
Experiential education is a philosophy of education that describes the process that occurs between a teacher and student that infuses direct experience with the learning environment and content. The term is mistakenly used interchangeably with experiential learning...
based on interviewing local people, and writing and publishing articles about their stories and oral traditions. This inspired numerous schools across the country to develop similar programs. In addition to its strong academic program, today it is one of two schools in the country to include a cirque
Cirque
Cirque may refer to:* Cirque, a geological formation* Makhtesh, an erosional landform found in the Negev desert of Israel and Sinai of Egypt*Cirque , an album by Biosphere* Cirque Corporation, a company that makes touchpads...
skills program in its curriculum. The students put on an annual performance.
History
Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School is one of the largest coeducational, college-preparatory boarding schools in the Deep SouthDeep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
, serving boarding and day students in grades 6-12. Located in Rabun Gap, the 1400 acres (5.7 km²) campus is cradled in the mountains of northeast Georgia. The school combines a strong academic program, mountain setting, and Presbyterian heritage to nurture and challenge students of diverse backgrounds as they prepare for college and a lifetime of service.
Andrew Jackson Ritchie, a Rabun County native, and his wife, Addie Corn Ritchie, founded the Rabun Gap Industrial School in 1905 to serve the children of the isolated and poverty-stricken community. With $1 and a personal note, Ritchie bought a 5 acres (20,234.3 m²) hilltop for the school. Construction began on the two-story main building, designed by Atlanta architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
Haralson Bleckley (son of Rabun County native Logan Bleckley), with pledges of cash support and manual labor. The school was open to both boys and girls.
Donations to the school declined during the World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
(1917–18) period, but Ritchie traveled to Boston, Massachusetts, and New York City to solicit funding. He had a unique plan for expansion and development called the Farm Family Settlement Program. Whole families would live at Rabun Gap, with the men learning agriculture, the women studying homemaking and health care, and the children continuing with regular studies. The Carnegie Foundation
Carnegie Foundation
The Carnegie Foundation is an organization based in The Hague, Netherlands. It was founded in 1903 by Andrew Carnegie in order to manage his donation of US$1.5 million, which was used for the construction, management and maintenance of the Peace Palace...
, the John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...
family, and other northern philanthropists provided generous support for his idea. However, it was Ernest Woodruff
Ernest Woodruff
Ernest Woodruff was an important businessman in the U.S. city of Atlanta.-Biography:Woodruff was born in Columbus, Georgia, USA...
, of the Coca-Cola Company and Trust Company of Georgia, who proved to be the bedrock supporter of Rabun Gap. According to school legend, Ritchie went door to door in Atlanta's Inman Park neighborhood asking for donations; at the Woodruff home, Emily Winship, Woodruff's wife, contributed money from her household fund and urged her husband to help. (Over time, several members of the Woodruff family, as well as the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, have made donations to the school.) With additional support from the United Daughters of the Confederacy
United Daughters of the Confederacy
The United Daughters of the Confederacy is a women's heritage association dedicated to honoring the memory of those who served in the military and died in service to the Confederate States of America . UDC began as the National Association of the Daughters of the Confederacy, organized in 1894 by...
, the school expanded with more acreage and the construction of farmhouses and barns. The farm family program remained successful until the 1970s, when textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...
manufacturing became key in Rabun County.
After a 1926 stove fire destroyed the school, Rabun Gap merged in 1927 with the Nacoochee Institute, founded in 1903 and formerly located in Sautee, Georgia. Headed by the Reverend John Knox Coit, the Nacoochee Institute was a boarding school for boys and girls as well as a public school for the students of White County
White County, Georgia
White County is a county located in the northeast corner of the U.S. state of Georgia. It was created on December 22, 1857, from part of Habersham County. The county was named for Newton County Representative David T. White, who helped a Habersham representative successfully attain passage of an...
. Six weeks after Rabun Gap's fire, the schoolhouse of the Nacoochee Institute burned as well. In September 1928 the Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School opened at Rabun Gap with a new school building. Ritchie served as president and Coit as co-president.
In 1927 the new school established a covenant with the Presbyterian Church (later PCUSA), a relationship that still exists. In 1934 Ritchie and members of the board of trustees added two years of junior college to the Rabun Gap curriculum. Training teachers for the county was a main goal, and courses were patterned after those offered at the University of Georgia
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
. World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
(1941–45) brought an end to the junior college program, as the war siphoned off enrollment.
The end of the 1930s brought numerous changes in leadership for Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School. Following the retirement of Ritchie and Coit, George Bellingrath served as president from 1939 to 1948. O. C. Skinner, former industrial manager of the Berry School in Rome, Georgia (founded by educator Martha Berry), was president from 1949 to 1956. Several buildings were added during Skinner's tenure, including the Addie Corn Ritchie Dining Hall, the Emily and Ernest Woodruff Chapel wing to Hodgson Hall, the Annie Lee Jones Library wing of Hodgson Hall, and the Arthur W. Smith Industrial Shop. From 1956 to 1984 Karl K. Anderson served as president. Under his leadership the Andrew Jackson Ritchie Gymnasium, the O. C. Skinner Natatorium, and four dormitory residence halls named for George Woodruff (son of Ernest), Irene Woodruff (wife of George), Ernest Woodruff, and Karl Anderson were built. Financial support also came from the Rabun Gap–Nacoochee guilds of Athens and Atlanta, the Rabun Gap–Nacoochee Club of Atlanta, and the Presbyterian Church.
In 1966 students in the English class started writing and publishing Foxfire
Foxfire (magazine)
The Foxfire magazine began in 1966, written and published as a quarterly American magazine by students at Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, a private secondary education school located in the U.S. state of Georgia...
, a quarterly magazine with their articles based on their interviews with local residents about Appalachian culture. It was a project initiated by the teacher Eliot Wigginton
Eliot Wigginton
Eliot Wigginton is an American oral historian, folklorist, writer and former educator. He was most widely known for developing the Foxfire Project, a writing project that led to a magazine and the series of best-selliing Foxfire books, twelve volumes in all...
to engage students in learning to use proper English. It gained national attention after a collection of articles was published in book form in 1972 and became a surprise bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
. The magazine and book (followed by more) aroused people's interest in traditional crafts and skills at a time when some people were trying to live more simply.
Having partly functioned as a public school for students in the north end of Rabun County, Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School became fully private in the fall of 1977, as Rabun County consolidated its public high schools. The Foxfire project was adopted by the public high school, where it has continued.
Struggling financially with the loss of public monies, the school suffered from less stable enrollment and the need to reconnect with its core strengths from the past. Anderson retired as president in 1984, and his successors were the Reverend Bruce Dodd (1984–92), Robert Johnston (1992–96), and Gregory Zeigler (1996–2004). They moved to create a college-preparatory curriculum and enforce more rigorous admissions standards. A building program, funded in part by a bequest of George Woodruff, resulted in the Morris Brown Science Building, the Arts and Technology Building, a new library, and athletic fields.
From 2004 until 2011, John Marshall was the head of Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School and the school gained ground in a host of important areas, including enrollment, student support services, competitive athletics, alumni relations, board development, annual giving growth, and facilities and grounds upkeep. In July 2011, Dr. Anthony H. Sgro, became the tenth head of RGNS. Most recently, Dr. Sgro has served as the Assistant Head and Dean of Students at Woodberry Forest School in Virginia. With over twelve years of experience at this leading boys’ boarding school, Dr. Sgro has wide-ranging experiences in residential life including serving as a dorm parent and in external relations including admissions, marketing, and development.
The RGNS motto of "work, study, worship," is still dominant. Today, a small number of the college-bound students are the first generation in their families to attend college. Two-thirds of the students receive some form of financial aid. In fall 2010, there were 340 students (186 boarding students and 154 day students), and the school continued its historic commitment to financial aid, allocating $3.8 million dollars through the advent of Georgia's tax credit program coupled with the generosity of the school's constituencies and endowment interest.
Student life
RGNS is one of two schools in the United States that offer a cirqueCirque
Cirque may refer to:* Cirque, a geological formation* Makhtesh, an erosional landform found in the Negev desert of Israel and Sinai of Egypt*Cirque , an album by Biosphere* Cirque Corporation, a company that makes touchpads...
program as part of the curriculum. They have an impressive array of apparatuses, including trapeze
Trapeze
A trapeze is a short horizontal bar hung by ropes or metal straps from a support. It is an aerial apparatus commonly found in circus performances...
, German wheel, aerial silks, lyra
Lyra
Lyra is a small constellation. It is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Its principal star, Vega — a corner of the Summer Triangle — is one of the brightest...
or aerial hoop, Spanish web
Spanish web
The Spanish web is an aerial circus skill, similar in appearance and style to corde lisse. The name refers to both the apparatus and the performance....
, triple trapeze and much more. Annually in February, the school puts on a cirque performance, and is gaining international fame every year. They also have a climbing wall
Climbing wall
A climbing wall is an artificially constructed wall with grips for hands and feet, usually used for indoor climbing, but sometimes located outdoors as well. Some are brick or wooden constructions, but on most modern walls, the material most often used is a thick multiplex board with holes drilled...
for competition and to build rock climbing skills.
Ongoing events at Rabun Gap include Madfest and annual sporting events, as well as the student body crawling around the high school courtyard and the "front hill" area on their hands and knees, begging others to rescue them or put them out of their misery. Rabun Gap has six dorms: 1 middle school girls dorm, 1 exclusive senior dorm, 2 high school boys dorms (one of which is shared with middle school boys), 1 freshman girls dorm, and 1 sophomore-junior girls dorm.
Suggested reading
- Rabun Gap – Nacoochee School: Our Mission, Our Heritage, 1903-2003 (Rabun Gap, Ga.: privately printed, 2002).
- Andrew Jackson Ritchie, Sketches of Rabun County History, 1819-1948 (n.p., 1948).
- Frances Patton Statham, Mountain Legacy: A Story of Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School with Emphasis on the Junior College Years (Atlanta: Cherokee, 1999).
- Patsy Wilson, A Time to Sow: RG-NS, a Planting for the Lord: A 75-Year History of Rabun Gap – Nacoochee School (Rabun Gap, Ga.: privately printed, 1978).