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Celebrating 75 years of education
Alan Rogers
Alumni admire a mural painted by Hickory artist Dan Smith (at left) during an open house Saturday at the school.
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Published: November 9, 2008
HICKORY - For more than 100 years, a school has been nestled in the Oakwood community of Hickory. Although it underwent a few name changes, the school eventually became known as Oakwood Elementary School.
Today's school stands on the same location as the original, which was the first public school in Hickory.
Oakwood Elementary celebrated the 75th anniversary of the school bearing that name Saturday.
When Joan Whitner Andrews attended Oakwood School, she remembers music played while the students walked in.
"We marched in to school to recordings that were played on phonographs," Andrews said. "There was a different song every day."
Andrews graduated from the school in 1931, when Oakwood School was first through seventh grades.
She said she brought her lunch to school or went home for lunch every day — every student did.
"Hickory wasn't as big then as it is now," Andrews said. "The boundary for the city is where Lenoir-Rhyne is. Where Viewmont is was all outside the city limits."
Although she attended school during the Great Depression, she said Oakwood was lucky, because it was was still in one of the more well-off areas of Hickory.
"The PTA financed a cafeteria for the school in 1928," Andrews said. "We had a lot of the doctors' and attorneys' kids who attended, which helped us, financially."
Besides school improvements, Andrews remembers other things about the school.
"We had a great faculty. There were no weak teachers at Oakwood School. It was a top elementary school," she said. "I remember we had a huge celebration of George Washington's birthday in 1932.
We were all in costumes, and we had music. It was a huge festival."
Andrews also remembers Oakwood having basketball, baseball and softball teams at the school, which would play against West and South schools.
Barbara Keck Pitts is another Oakwood Elementary School alumna. She attended several years after Andrews. By then, Oakwood only offered first through sixth grades. The school still offered sports for students in the fifth and sixth grades, though, and Pitts played on the basketball team both years. For tournaments, the teams played at the YMCA.
Pitts has fond memories of the school, including the yeast rolls baked fresh each day and the school's library.
"The school had a wonderful library. I think I read every biography that was there. It still has a great library now," she said.
Pitts is currently a fourth-grade teacher at Oakwood Elementary School. She began teaching at the school in 1982, and said she returned because she had great memories of the school.
"I tell the students that I ate meals in the lunchroom that they eat in, and I played in the gym that they play in now," she said.
Although the school is a little larger now — there are three classrooms per grade level, instead of two — Oakwood Elementary is still very much a community school. Many students walk to school each day with their parents, and the school just participated in its first International Walk to School Day in October. Students also walk to nearby field trips, such as the Heritage Days at Maple Grove in Hickory.
"I love it here. I'm very proud of the school, and I try to convey it to the students and the parents, too," Pitts said. "I want them to have a good experience, like I did."
Today, the school has about 410 students, and is kindergarten through fifth grade. The school's population has grown to add mobile trailers to accommodate all the students. The first one was added during the 2007-08 school year, the second was added this year, said Jeff Hodakowski, principal at Oakwood Elementary.
Despite the growth, Oakwood is still a tight-knit school.
"This is still a neighborhood school," Hodakowski said. "We've had more families moving into the community in recent years."
He said the parents also have been extremely supportive of the school, with parents volunteering to support the school and their children's classes in whatever way they can.
"The community and school has a common bond that's close to each other. It's a gem to have such great support," Hodakowski said.
Oakwood Elementary has also developed new traditions of its own. When the older Oakwood School was renovated, the school's bell was removed. It's since been put back at the school. After the fifth-graders graduate, they walk outside and each student rings the bell from the original Oakwood School.
Hodakowski has worked to instill a sense of pride in the fighting bluejays — the school mascot — in the students.
"When I got here, the focus was on the oaks and the acorns rather than the bluejay, which was the original mascot of the school because there are photos of the bluejay on some of the basketball teams' jerseys," Hodakowski said. "I didn't want to forget about it. I thought the bluejay was important. So we re-introduced the bluejay on car magnets and we painted it in the center of the gym floor, and we're trying to get the school back to that."
Hodakowski said he's happy to be the principal of a school in such an involved community.
"I'm very pleased and honored to be at the same school and watch the kids grow up," he said. "It's a great neighborhood school. Any principal will say their school is the best, but I love the small, close-knit aspect of Oakwood. Our location is unique, because we're so close to downtown."
Hodakowski's even been immortalized with his inclusion in the new mural artist Dan Smith painted on a long hallway in the school. The mural depicts Catawba County's history, as well as some of the elements the students are studying in school, from science to history to art.
The mural, which students love to look at, is one more thing for the students and staff to take pride in at their school. Something they've been doing for more than 75 years.
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