Members of the Fayette County High Class of 1946 gather Sunday for a
portrait on the steps of Southern Oaks in Fayetteville. They are (front,
from left) Jo Smith Knowles, Abb Burch, Louise Lee Knowles, Carl Walker
Erchak, Regina Davis Godby (second row, from left) Lela Graves Peek, Travis
Hardy, Joyce Tate Bannister, Clifford Flowers, Aubrey Renfroe (third row,
from left) Talmadge Williams, J.C. Newton, Homer Cooper, C.B. Harris (top,
from left) Wilda Bray Stapp, Heyward Owens, and Mae Smith Moore. Photo/J.
Frank Lynch.
Fayette
High Class of ‘46
has special ties to house
When members of the Fayette County High School’s Class of 1946 gathered
last Sunday afternoon for an annual reunion, it was more of a homecoming
than usual for at least one graduate.
The reunion was held at Southern Oaks, a special events facility located
in a restored house on Jeff Davis Drive.
From 1942 until he graduated in 1946, class member Heyward Owens lived in
the house. The home belonged to his father, J.H. Owens, who was principal
of Fayette County High at the time.
The elder Owens later moved to become principal in Hampton, where Heyward
Owens still lives today.
On Sunday, he fondly showed his classmates from 1946 where he once slept,
in a room at the back of the house that now serves as a reception area.
“My bed was pushed up all the way against that wall,” he described.
Just like Fayette County itself, the house has changed a great deal in 58
years, Owens confessed.
Originally built around 1913 on what was then known as Railroad Street,
the home served as a single-family residence until sometime in the 1960s
when it was cut up into apartments, said the current owner, Michelle Cox.
Cox and her husband bought the house in 2001 and began restoring it as Southern
Oaks.
The Class of ‘46 first met at Southern Oaks last year, and was so impressed
with the restoration — and the close connections the house has to their
class, in particular — they decided to come back each year.
Sixteen graduates attended Sunday’s gathering, out of a total class
of 33. Of those, seven are deceased and the whereabouts of two others are
unknown.
“Most of the class was from out in the county, coming to school on
buses from Brooks-Woolsey, Sandy Creek-Fife, Shakerag (now Peachtree City)
and Kenwood,” said graduate Joyce Tate Bannister, who today lives in
Woolsey.
“There were only about four or five bus routes,” she said. “I
think there were seven town students, as we were called.”
Buses weren’t available to students who lived in the city limits of
Fayetteville, she said, which was just as well.
“Many times the buses got stuck in the red muddy roads and the students
got out and pushed,” she said.
At the time, the only paved road in all of Fayette County was Ga. Highway
54 from Jonesboro to Newnan, she said.
The Class of ‘46 wasn’t afraid of adventure, though. Bannister
recalled that for their senior trip, the class took one of those old, rickety
Fayette County school buses all the way to Mammoth Cave, Ky.
“We left right after we graduated, getting to Chattanooga for the first
stop,” she said.
Several members of the class fondly recalled the Kentucky trip as the highlight
of their high school times.
The Class of ‘46 also apparently had a reputation for a bit of rowdiness.
In an open letter to the junior class in the final edition of the Fayette
Hi Times newspaper that year, Editor Carol Banks sarcastically took the rising
seniors to task for trying to one-up the graduates.
“The editorial written in the last issue about the present seniors
seemed somewhat hostile to us,” she wrote. “He referred to us as
the ‘fussin’-est and fightin’-est’ but this occurred
among ourselves. Our record seemed to stand out, but not quite so far as
the juniors ... after all, you could not be expected to compete with such
as this year’s juniors...”
Though they plan to gather again next year on the first Sunday in October,
Bannister said members are already planning a bigger celebration in 2006
when the class will mark their 60th anniversary.
