The 1979 Cass County Genealogical Society, Vol. VI, No. II.

THE OLD ROCK SPRINGS SCHOOL
By Wallace McKeehan
(Taken From the Atlanta Times Editorials, Mar. 11, 1979)

I came here on this cold December night and paused near the spring from which the school got its name. I came to see if in my thoughts I could think of something that would be a contribution to the writing of the history of Cass County by the Genealogical Society. There is nothing here that a stranger passing by would even slow down to see. The playground is all covered with shrubs, the house is long ago torn down, the area around the spring is grown up with weeds. All I can hear is the moaning of the wind through the barren trees. A Lonely feeling came over me, the chill of the December wind gripped me. I got up and started to leave. It was then the curtain of time was pulled aside by an unseen hand. I looked again and there they were. Teaching masters Bob Lee, Roy Glass and others molding the minds of future Americans. It was in the 1920's and early 30's. I could hear the bouncing of the basketballs on the dirt courts. Roy as coaching the "Country Greenhorns". Wayne and O. B. Davis, the Pugh boys, Bill Well, J. Harrist, Guy Price, Wallace McKeehan and others into a championship team that was to take all honors at the county meet. There were girls there also to challenge any competitors.

Farrah Boone, Christine Patterson, and others were giving their very best in the classroom and as coaches on the courts. To name a few, Imogene and Ellanora Harrist, Florene, Marjorie and Deen McKeehan, Susan, Dolly and Eunice Griffin. Most of the things that people did in those days centered around the school. All events of any importance began there. Most of the kids who have lived in that county have at time or another ridden to some singing , church function, or fifth Sunday gathering, a baseball game or something also on the flatbed truck of Cleve Ragsdale.

The end of the long cold wet winters of northeast Cass County was signaled by the close of school. To celebrate, the patrons came together for a day of fellowship and feasting. It was usually a fish fry in the big iron wash pot. If fish were not available, then we would have a pot stew, topped off with every kind of goodie imaginable. Many homespun almanacs could have been written from the ideas discussed at one of those gatherings. Good many marriages began there also. Consolidation was the end of Old Rock Springs. I am not against that if it produces a better way of life for future generations, but the warm feeling of closeness and friendship in human ties is forever lost in the larger schools of today. That, too, is history.

I will say that , while it lasted, the character of many useful Americans were molded there. They have served well in their field of endeavor in agriculture, the military, church ministries, the teaching field or just plain Jim or Joe.

Ed. Note.....Though many are familiar with the old Rock Springs School, there was not a lot of documentation on its history. Bloomburg School Supt. Bill Bricker remembers the school being consolidated with the old Cass School "about 1930". The Cass School was then consolidated with Bloomburg int he early 1960's, about the time the old Rock Springs School, located on a two acre tract off FM 251, was torn down. Viola Griffin, mentioned in Mr. McKeehan's recollection as a Rock Springs teacher, went on to teach school in Queen City and is now a member of the QC City Council. Another bit of Rock Springs lore is the old school was where Mr. and Mrs. David A. Wommack, Sr. of Atlanta met when both taught in the school in the mid 1920's.