Hazel Green Academy records (SIA copies)

Hazel Green Academy was founded in 1880 in the small farming community of Hazel Green, in Wolfe County, Kentucky. At the urging of his wife Lou Ellen, W.O. Mize, along with two other men of the Hazel Green community, J.T. Day and Green Berry Swango, financed and established the Academy. The founders remained responsible for the school until 1886, when it came under the auspices of the Christian Women’s Board of Missions, a mission arm of the Disciples of Christ (Christian) Church. In 1919, another division of the Christian Church, the United Christian Missionary Society (UCMS), headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, became the governing body and the major source of financial support for the Academy.

Established at a time when few eastern Kentucky roads were passable the year round, and 28 years before Kentucky provided for the establishment and maintenance of public high schools, Hazel Green Academy began as a boarding school and remained so until 1983. Although the Academy teaching staff during those years numbered few more than a half-dozen, grades 1-12 were offered until 1929, when grades 1-6 were discontinued. The Academy continued to teach grades 7-12 until 1965, by which time grades 7 and 8 were no longer being offered.

The purpose and philosophy of the school during the early years is articulated in the earliest surviving catalogue:
Hazel Green Academy is established as a Mission for the Kentucky mountains; hence its very low rates of tuition, and the offer of the managers to educate free of charge the worthy indigent. It is intended to bring it within the power of the poorest in this world’s goods to secure a good education. It is hoped the Academy may serve as a stepping stone to college and a higher sphere in life to some who otherwise might never have an aspiration beyond the life of their fathers. By giving young men and women a taste of better things, we hope to fill them with a noble ambition to rise in life.

This philosophy was repeated in subsequent catalogues and elaborated upon in a 1919 statement referring to the philosophy of President William G. Frost of Berea College: ". . . the mountain boys and girls should come into school, be trained and sent back to their homes in the mountains, each becoming a bit of leaven to leaven the whole lump. . . ."

In keeping with its goal of being a steppingstone to a college career, the Academy established a curriculum composed primarily of college preparatory courses. However, as early as 1888 many Kentucky mountain teachers were attending its normal school. By 1900, the Academy was offering a two-year course of training for the ministry, and by 1903 had established a Commercial Department which taught a five-month business course. In 1908, an Industrial Department appears in the school catalogue. In addition to its academic offerings, the school emphasized participation in extracurricular activities such as oratorical and declamatory contests and athletics, and required membership in school literary societies. Participation in religious activities, both on and off-campus, was expected of HGA students and staff.

As had other mountain schools located far from commercial centers that lacked utilities and communications systems, Hazel Green Academy acquired fairly extensive land holdings, built a sizable physical plant, and established its own electric and water systems. The years between 1928 and 1950 were the years of greatest growth for the Academy, particularly in the area of community service.

Director Henry Stovall is generally seen to be the central figure behind this process of growth and outreach. With the support of the UCMS, which wanted the Academy to extend its work beyond the campus, a small on-campus hospital, a 212-acre demonstration farm, a kindergarten and a used-clothing store were established. As late as the 1930s, the Academy generated electricity for the campus and the town from the basement of the old Industrial Arts Building. New construction between 1928 and 1950 included a dairy barn and the first silo in the county, a deep well supplying all of the Academy’s water, the Administration Building, and the school’s first gymnasium. Faculty and students taught Sunday school classes and organized prayer groups for local church congregations which did not have pastors. For a number of years, the Academy held regular movie showings, folk dances, and athletic events to which the community was invited. In 1945, the school planted a big garden which work campers helped harvest and can. The Academy donated the resultant 6 1/2 tons of food for European relief.

By the 1950s, Hazel Green Academy was reporting many of the same problems that were beginning to affect other small, private, church-related schools which had been founded to meet the needs of rural mountain communities of the early 1900s. Modernized road systems made it possible to attend nearby public schools which by this time were able to offer a comparable education at less cost to the student. The public schools offered higher salaries and demanded less of the teachers’ time than did the private boarding school. Students who were not specifically interested in religious studies were less attracted the church-oriented institutions than to public schools. During those two decades and into the 1970s, the Academy experienced difficulties in maintaining full enrollment and in attracting and keeping teachers. Rising costs made the operation and maintenance of the physical plant an increasing burden.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Academy continued many of its community programs. It co-sponsored a bookmobile program between 1958 and 1960, opened a community library in the 1960s, and continued its kindergarten program. From 1956 through 1959, the school operated a community health clinic which provided the first mass polio immunization program for Wolfe County. The Academy continued to run the demonstration farm into the 1960s, to supply meat, eggs, vegetables, and milk for students and staff who lived on campus.

In 1970 the Division of Home Ministries, the branch of the Christian Church then overseeing the operation of the Academy, began to turn over administrative and financial responsibility to the Academy. Although the Christian Church continued to support and contribute to the Academy, after 1971, it became an independent institution affiliated with the Christian Church. Citing the continuance of many of the problems beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, the school underwent a number of evaluations conducted by outside organization, with particular emphasis on determining how best to continue its program. The Academy decided to continue its operation as a boarding high school, setting as its major goals the strengthening of the fundraising and recruiting programs, and taking steps to ensure a low turnover of teaching staff.

Although consistently faced with the same basic problems–difficulty in attracting students and faculty, an expensive physical plant, and other financial difficulties–Hazel Green Academy was able to maintain its boarding high school until 1983. On June 30, 1983, pointing to the increasing deficit incurred in the process of improving program and salaries as the primary problem, the Board of Directors unexpectedly voted not to reopen the school in the fall of 1983. The facility has been renamed the Hazel Green Christian Center. The Division of Homeland Ministries of the Disciples of Christ, which is still the owner of the property, has retained a small staff and expressed the intention to continue to use the facility in some capacity.