Fulton High School
On May 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order to establish the Works Project Administration or WPA. In the midst of the Great Depression with an unemployment rate slightly more than 20%, the WPA was intended to replace direct relief to the unemployed by providing them work on government subsidized public projects including the construction of buildings such as libraries, court houses and schools deemed essential to the public good.
In Fulton, the need for a new high school had been discussed for several years, but in 1929, voters rejected a $100,000 bond issue to fund its construction. The Board of Education quickly realized that funding from the WPA might enable the city to build a new high school and, in addition, to complete two other projects: the construction of a school for black students to replace North School and the remodeling of the current high school as an elementary school. In the spring of 1935, the Board requested a grant of $111,000 from the WPA, approximately 45% of the $247,000 estimated cost of the three projects. In May 1936, knowing that the government would provide $111,000, voters approved a second bond issue for $146,000 by a landslide – only 75 people voted against it
1938 was a memorable year for the Fulton school system; in 12 short months, two new schools were constructed and an existing school underwent significant remodeling. George Washington Carver, for whom the new school for black students was named, spoke at its dedication and then Senator Harry S. Truman, who had been instrumental in securing WPA funding, gave a speech at the September 23 dedication of the new high school. The Fulton High School Band also performed at the dedication in what may have been one of its first public appearances since the band had been organized only one year earlier.
In 1938, WPA projects provided employment for more than three million Americans. Despite the successful completion of these three projects, the Board of Education recognized that hard times persisted in Fulton and Callaway County. Because many students were ending their education at the 8th grade in order to find a job and help their families financially, the Board approved a plan to send Hi-Life, the school newspaper, to all 8th grade students in the hope of encouraging them to stay in school. The following year they expanded the program to include 8th graders throughout the county. The Board also agreed to allow some of the young men living at the Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Fulton to attend classes at the high school with tuition paid by the state.
Not all the Board’s decisions involving the new high school were linked to the depression however. That year the Board also voted to require academic caps and gowns to be worn at commencement and to permit dances to be held in the new building (no more than four per year and all well supervised of course).