This Month in Rockingham County History: June - County Commitment to Vocational Education

June 1966

In June 1966, the Leaksville-Rockingham County Industrial Education Center (IEC) held its last commencement. In its final year of operation, the IEC awarded fifty certificates to those completing a two-year program in areas such as mechanical drafting, auto mechanics, machine shop, radio and TV servicing, and cosmetology. These vocational training endeavors were then transferred into the campaign to build Rockingham Community College (RCC), and the staff and equipment were assigned to the Wentworth campus which opened later that year.

(Above: A page in the 1956 Tri-City High School yearbook, Tricinoca, shows the students and facilities of the locally-sponsored Vocational High School the year before the state funded the first Industrial Education Centers. Tricinoca, Tri-City High School, 1956, page 103)

​The Industrial Education Center in the Tri-Cities area (Leaksville, Spray and Draper) was one of the first seven vocational schools established by the state of North Carolina in 1957. The other six IECs funded that year by a $500,000 appropriation from the NC General Assembly were in Burlington, Durham, Goldsboro, Jamestown, Wilmington, and Wilson. This initiative during the administration of Governor Luther H. Hodges, a Leaksville resident and former textile executive at area employer Marshall Field and Company (later Fieldcrest Mills), was just one of the ways Hodges exhibited a lifelong dedication to workplace education, technical training, and business advancement. As Governor, he was very successful in recruiting businesses to North Carolina and later was named U.S. Secretary of Commerce by President John F. Kennedy. By the mid-1960s, the number of IECs grew to twenty sites, providing a foundation for a statewide community college system.

​At a cost of $150,000, the Leaksville Industrial Education Center was constructed adjacent to Morehead High School and opened in 1958. To “reach the man-on-the job as well as high school youth” all across Rockingham County, the IEC offered classes in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. To enroll in the program, students had to pass a standardized aptitude test and have at least eight high school units, two of them in math. Upon completion of the two-year training, graduates earned certificates that they might present to potential employers. Located in a community with numerous mills, the IEC’s course in textiles was a featured program. Not only would young men learn the basic machinery, according to the first director, Henry Rahn, but they would learn the skills needed for successful work in the mills and advancement “up to positions of supervisory responsibility.” To ready the IEC for opening, Rahn made a job-needs survey of over 150 industrial and commercial businesses in the county. In addition to textiles, he found that there was a great demand for employees in electronics and automobile mechanics. The IEC in Leaksville operated successfully for the next eight years before it was phased into Rockingham Community College.
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     In fact, the seeds of the community college and vocational training had been sown in Rockingham County over many decades. In the Tri-Cities area especially, there was historically a strong commitment to basic literacy among adult workers, workplace preparation, and vocational education. As early as the 1920s, a large number of night classes were set up in Tri-Cities communities for men and boys who worked in the local textile plants and wanted to “get a better education and to make themselves ready for better jobs.” Eighteen different night classes, each meeting twice a week, were organized by Hodges, the textile mills’ educational director. One class in elementary electricity met on Tuesday and Saturday nights. “You can be sure that a class of boys that will meet on Saturday nights is serious in its work,” one observer noted. In 1931, a delegation representing the Committee on Adult Illiteracy asked the local school board for and received one thousand dollars to hold classes in basic education for three months. One member of this committee was again Hodges, who took on a role teaching adults throughout this period. Finances thinned as the Depression continued. Hodges returned to the Leaksville school board, seeking funds from the school system to carry on this vocational and literacy work in night classes. They were able to give only half of what was requested, as they were cutting expenses in several areas, including reducing pay for the superintendent and principals by 10 percent. The school system did, however, take on this project a few months later, funding eleven night classes, including one for black citizens in the Draper section.

(Above: This image of Luther H. Hodges from the front page of the Leaksville News in 1934 shows that the future North Carolina governor was already acknowledged as a local leader: ‘Who’s Who of Community Leaders,’ Leaksville (NC) News, June 14, 1934, page 1)

​In 1934, night classes in the Tri-Cities area were expanded, with the state and the Leaksville Hospital sharing expenses for a course in Dietetics. While monies were limited in late 1936, the Leaksville school system was able to commit an additional $450 from local funds for the “promotion of evening schools in Trades and Industries.” In 1939, Hodges was still involved in keeping these classes going, obtaining $250 from the local schools and matching that amount from his own funds. Clearly, these vocational and literacy courses were of great importance to the citizens of the Tri-Cities area, and especially to the future governor. 

​ In the years leading up to World War II, citizens in Leaksville, Spray, and Draper had even more access to workplace training. Some technical training in textiles took place in a school established in the Nantucket Mill in Spray, a part of the Marshall Field facilities. There various textile operations were taught in what was basically a “small textile mill.” About two-thirds of the first students were “mill employees, anxious to improve themselves in their textile work.” What started in the Nantucket Mill facility became a comprehensive vocational high school operated for the next twenty years by the local public school system with the assistance of the numerous industrial interests in the area. With a focus on textiles and featuring Jaquard looms, the Leaksville Vocational School officially opened in 1937, as a division of Leaksville High School. Those eligible to attend the school as it was initiated were junior and senior-level high school boys or “employees from local and industrial and business enterprises.” In its first year, seventy-five students earned “diplomas, certificates, or unit cards... in yarn manufacturing or weaving and designing.” Teachers were trained in the skills to be taught at this special school by industrial education experts, including a professor from North Carolina State College. Skilled instructors were hired and equipment was purchased by the local school board as courses were gradually expanded to include “practical English,” as well as metal and woodworking. 

(Above: This NC highway historical marker was cast in 2011 and erected near the site of the Leaksville-Rockingham Industrial Education Center)

​Over many decades, Rockingham County has had a strong history of training the workforce. At mid-century, the citizens of the Tri-Cities area clearly had good access to workplace education and vocational training. Literacy classes for local workers in the 1920s and 1930s grew into vocational classes co-sponsored by local manufacturers and the public schools in the 1940s and 1950s. The presence of an already established vocational high school no doubt made the area a prime location for the new Industrial Education Center built in the late 1950s. When Leaksville was selected as the site of one of the state-sponsored vocational centers in 1957, the facilities and offerings of the school were further enhanced, planting the seeds of a community college system and making Rockingham County an integral part of preparing workers for the industrial expansion North Carolina saw in the 1960s and 1970s.

References:
“Fifty IEC Students To Get Diplomas In Final Graduation,” Leaksville (NC) News, June 29, 1966, 1; “Ground Broken on New College in Impressive Ceremonies,” Leaksville (NC) News, January 12, 1966, 1; Rockingham Community College, “Our History,”
​http://www.rockinghamcc.edu/about/history; “Luther H. Hodges,” Miller Center, University of Virginia, https://millercenter.org/president/lbjohnson/essays/hodges-1963-secretary-of-commerce; “Vocational School Set Up As One of Seven in NC To Get State Aid,” Leaksville (NC) News, April 17, 1958, 3; “State Offers Adults Vocational Studies,” Leaksville (NC) News, July 31, 1958, 1; “Shortage of Apartments for Teachers Vexes School Board,” Leaksville (NC) News, February 13, 1958, 1; “Notable Success in Night Class Work,” North Carolina Education, December 1921, 27; “Woodwork and Machine Shop Instruction Will Be Offered This Year,” Leaksville (NC) News, September 8, 1938, 5; “Expanding Facilities of Vocational Textile School for Opening of Fall Term,” Leaksville (NC) News, August 11, 1938, 1; “Training Course for Local Textile School Instructors Being Held This Week,” Leaksville (NC) News, August 25, 1938, 1; “Industrial Education Centers,” North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program,
​http://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=J-113. On the local schools and vocational training, the IEC and Rockingham Community College, see Minutes of Leaksville Township Schools, January 9, 1931; July 29, 1932; September 19, 1932; October 5, 1934; November 16, 1934; May 25, 1939; July 19, 1937; January 12, 1950; May 13, 1954; August 6, 1956; March 10, 1958; January 11, 1960; May 9, 1960; July 11, 1960; and October 8, 1962; and Minutes of Rockingham County Schools, January 10, 1966.