Buladean Graduates

Buladean Presbyterian Graduates, left to right, as Troy Hill (1907-1978), Myrtle Street (1907-2001), Vista Hill (1909-1996), and Lennis Bennett (1906-2007).

Notes accompanying this photo identify the first graduating class from a school sponsored by the Buladean Presbyterian Church, which was organized by the Holston Presbytery in 1922.  There was no date with the photo; however, Churches of the Mayland Fellowship record that Miss Annie E. Hatton from South Carolina came to Buladean in 1924 and “taught in the first high school which met in an old abandoned store building that joined the church property.”   There is an excellent account of Ann Hatton’s grueling journey from Clinton, SC, to Buladean and her 6-month teaching experience in the high school in Voices of the Valley, Elizabeth Hunter’s fine history of Mitchell County’s first 150 years.Down the hill from the Buladean Presbyterian Church was a large frame dormitory where students from Yancey and Avery Counties boarded, but the graduates in the photo were local and lived at home.

Troy and Vista Hill were the children of William Harrison and Venia Hughes Hill.  Troy married Geneva McCourry, and Vista married J. Dont Street.  Myrtle Street was the daughter of Calvin and Rosa Alice Bennett Street; she married David Emmitt McCourry.  Lennis Bennett was the daughter of James and Martha Ann Elizabeth Wise Bennett and the wife of Frank A. Hughes.