You cannot help but appreciate how E.E. Smith High School alumni feel about this revered place along Seabrook Road.
They cherish this school.
It’s a part of who they were, who they are and who they have become.
“I love E.E. Smith,” Dee Major Hardy said Tuesday as about 200 people turned out for a town hall on the school campus to listen and give their voice to the fate of the Cumberland County school being considered for a new location outside the gates of Fort Liberty. “I love our community. But our community is not what it was.
“It’s time for us to move to a new building. E.E. Smith is going to be E.E. Smith no matter where it goes.
“It’s not the location,” Hardy said. “It’s the heart.”
The school, circa 1953, is located at 1800 Seabrook Road. It’s outlived its time, some say, as they call for a new location and a 21st century building that will provide a stronger educational foundation for Golden Bulls of tomorrow. The Cumberland County Board of Education has recommended Stryker Golf Course outside of the military base as the place – a decision now in the hands of the Cumberland Board of County Commissioners.
County schools officials say they have hired engineers to research eight potential locations, including the current site of the high school. They say Seabrook Road just cannot accommodate the more than 100 acres needed for a state-of-the-art high school for E.E. Smith High School students to come.
“Remaining at our current location does not serve our current student body,” Kenneth Williams, 17, the student body president, would tell those who gathered in the school auditorium. “We must not miss this. The sky is the limit.”
Others, like Angela Hayes, would argue back.
“I’m 100% for children,” Hayes, E.E. Smith class of 1975, said. “I’m a researcher. I’m afraid if it’s on Stryker Golf Course, it will no longer be E.E. Smith.”
Others would concur.
It’s the conundrum in this matter of relocating the historically Black school to another site and away from its identity of the Broadell, Seabrook Park, Eccles Park and Evans Hill neighborhoods not so far from Murchison Road.
‘Foundation for the future’
“This is an opportunity to come talk about something for our students,” Dr. Marvin Connelly Jr., superintendent for Cumberland County Schools, said. “When I came six years ago, one of the first things I heard was we need to build a new E.E. Smith High School. What education looked like in 1953 is nothing what education looks like today.”
And the curriculum, school system leaders say, is nothing like once it was. E.E. Smith has evolved into a nationally certified STEAM campus offering science, mathematics, engineering, the arts and technology. A global world is challenging and the 21st century is calling.
“It’s not just about building a new school,” Connelly told skeptics, “but laying a foundation for the future.”
But this is Seabrook Road, the skeptics argue, home of E.E. Smith High School for 71 years. This, they say, is our history. This is our heritage. This isn’t just dirt along Seabrook Road, where the school is a testament to the past. This is sacred and revered ground.
Connelly has heard the testimony before.
The superintendent also offered assurance that wherever the site, the school along Seabrook Road will not be destroyed.
Connelly says the board of education wants to repurpose the school as an academy for young men or women or a career technical school.
“We need that here in Cumberland County,” he said. “Don’t worry about the building sitting empty.”
But the superintendent quickly was back to discussion about relocating the school to Fort Liberty, where it, according to the school system, will service 1,600 students.
“Our objective is to construct a 21st century School, a nationally recognized school,” the superintendent said. “We want to honor the past while building on its history.”
That history dates to 1927, when the school named for Ezekiel Ezra Smith open first opened in the Orange Street School before being relocated in 1929 at Campbell Avenue and on Washington Drive in 1941.
“We are committed to building a new E.E. Smith High School,” Connelly said. “We are all committed to what is best for our students. No matter where the building is, the name will remain E.E. Smith High School. The heritage will continue. The legacy is E.E. Smith."
Assurances from the general
Should Stryker Golf Course be the choice of the Cumberland Board of County Commissioners, the commanding general of the XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Liberty assured all on Tuesday the heritage of the school will not be tarnished.
“The legacy is just as important to us as it is to you,” Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue would say. “E.E. Smith is Fort Liberty’s high school, and we have to continue that legacy.”
Should Stryker Golf Course become home for the school, Donahue suggested naming it 1800 E.E. Smith Boulevard. There was suggestion that the clubhouse become a museum of E.E. Smith High School artifacts and history. The military base location would be a place offering other amenities like venues for extracurricular activities to include athletics.
“Everyone who lives on Fort Liberty,” Donahue said, “this is their high school.”
With E.E. Smith High as the potential site for the military golf course, there will be no cost to the county for use of the property.
“The cost of that land,” Donahue said, “is zero dollars to the county.”
The property falls under support of the Department of Defense Education Activity, a federal school system headquartered in Alexandria, Va.
Cost for construction of a new school, county officials say, is $159,974,480. Construction is the responsibility of Cumberland County.
‘A new school pronto’
Fayetteville City Councilman Mario Benavente, a graduate of E.E. Smith High, supports the Donald Ross-designed golf course as the site.
“Think how expensive things are to pay for if we’re spending money moving retaining walls and soil,” Benavente said, alluding to Associate Superintendent of Auxiliary Services Kevin Coleman telling the audience that other sites considered offered a myriad of issues to include soil toxins, environmental concerns and wetlands. “We maximize every dollar when talking about Fort Liberty. I want us to know we’re maximizing every dollar, and we need to get a new school pronto.”
Donna Vann with the school board weighed in on the Jan. 11 decision to recommend the military golf as the proposed home of a new school.
“We very much are for this,” said Vann, who joined in the vote along with board members Greg West, Nathan Warfel, Jacquelyn Brown and Alicia Chisolm. Susan Williams, a school board member who did not participate in the vote, said she supports Fort Liberty as the proposed site, too. School board members in opposition were Chairwoman Deanna Jones, Carrie Sutton and Judy Musgrave.
“We’re not wanting to change anything about E.E. Smith,” Vann said. “E.E. Smith is not just a legacy. E.E. Smith is a legend.”
But Vann says she has seen the need.
“When you walk these hall and see what these young men and women are not getting,” she said, a new school “has everything we can offer them for their future. What they are doing in aviation they can’t continue in this building. It doesn’t matter if it is on Stryker, it’s still E.E. Smith High School. Let’s do what’s best for their future; not our memories.”
Larry Parker Jr. stood in the back of the auditorium until making his way to a microphone to remind all he is a proud principal of the school and a graduate of the class of 1991. His father is a graduate, as well as his grandfather, an uncle and an aunt.
“This school is everything to me,” Parker said. “I’m vested in this community as well. We have the very best school in Cumberland County, I tell my kids that every day, and I believe that. This board of education and Dr. Connelly wants what is best, and Gen. Donahue. They are committed if we do what is best for kids. What else do we need to talk about?”
Epilogue
You couldn’t help being in this auditorium Tuesday without your mind drifting back to principals, administrators, teachers, and coaches from E.E. Miller to W.T. Brown to John Griffin to D.T. Carter, Ike Walker and Bill Carver among them.
What would they think? What would they say?
“It’s time,” some of us can hear the late W.T. Brown saying. “Not about yesterday, but about our E.E. Smith High School students of tomorrow and what they can become.”
Perhaps Marvin Connelly hears W.T. Brown’s whispers, too.
“If not now, when? the superintendent asked. “If not us, who?”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
We're in our third year of CityView Today, and so many of you have been with us from day one in our efforts to bring the news of the city, county, community and Cape Fear region each day. We’re here with a purpose — to deliver the news that matters to you. To sustain CityView Today’s reporting, we cannot do it without you, and hope you will become members of our team by giving your support. Click here to join.
