Education in Paintsville and Johnson County
Efforts at rudimentary education in the region began before the creation of Johnson County in 1843. Early pioneers came to the mountains of eastern Kentucky seeking opportunities to expand both their economic and educational potential. When they arrived in Kentucky it was still a mountainous pioneer wilderness. The only requirement for teaching was a passing knowledge of spelling, reading, writing and a little arithmetic.
School houses were few and far between. Pupils were compelled to travel, without cars or buses, and usually walking five or more miles to attend school for a term which was seldom more than three months. Subscription or winter schools were frequently held in private homes at the initiation of teachers or parents.
Early teachers of note included Professor William N. Randolph, who began teaching when bears, wolves and mountain lions were still a part of the mountainous landscape, Charles Grim, Lewis Mayo, Professor J. B. Wheatley, Professor T. J. Mayo, and the Reverend William Jayne. (By the way, the title "professor" was honorary in most instances and was ascribed to those teachers who were among the most respected and revered.)
Jayne, an educated Baptist preacher, did much to establish the beginning of organized education in Johnson County. He founded the Enterprise Academy at Flat Gap the principal goal of which was to teach teachers. The earliest school of record in Johnson County, however, was in 1861 at Flat Gap. A log school building was erected there. 10 years later the school was moved to its permanent location at the site of the present Flat Gap Elementary School.
Initially, schools were frequently established by act of the General Assembly. In 1884 the Flat Gap High School Company was incorporated by the General Assembly with a board which included Henry Daniel, Hiram Conley, William Jayne, Alexander Rice and Wallace Bailey. Legislative acts establishing schools at East Point and Ward City (Greasy Creek) were enacted in 1886 and 1888. A Johnson County school bond was authorized by the General Assembly in 1873.
According to the late C. Mitchel Hall in his remarkable volume History of Johnson County published in 1926, by 1927 Johnson County had a total of 80 grade schools, not including those at Van Lear and Paintsville and John C. C. Mayo College, which was for all practical purposes a private prep school. Clearly, the people of Johnson County had made education a priority. They continue to do so!
The information which follows was taken, in part, from a series on Johnson County education published in The Paintsville Herald in 1992 and written by W. R. Conley, June Rice, Ruth Salyer, Eileen Ramey, Harold Preston and Erma Lee Hayes Ward. We acknowledge their individual and collective contributions to Johnson County's education with gratitude.
(References herein to the "WPA" are to a federally funded employment program, Works Projects Administration, founded by the Roosevelt Administration in 1933.)
