Paintsville High School
The Paintsville Free Graded School was organized in 1889. However, Paintsville had formal schools soon after the close of the Civil War.
Called Subscription Schools, parents paid the teachers and frequently providing them with room and board. At one point there were actually two schools - a Northern (or Republican) School and a Southern (or Democrat) School. These were discarded, however, with the formation of a city school system in 1889.
The first school building was built in 1892 but too soon the splendid frame structure burned to the ground and a new one had to be constructed.
Paintsville High School handed out its first high school diplomas in 1894 to James W. Turner and Fred Howes, each of whom eventually became attorney.
The early curriculum at Paintsville was formidable. 8th Grade students studied physiology, U. S. History, geography, drawing, algebra, writing and Moral Philosophy. The high school curriculum was worse. It included Latin, English, physics, advanced algebra, chemistry, trigonometry, surveying, bookkeeping and mental philosophy. In 1894 there were four teachers and 185 students.
New school buildings were built in 1918, 1926, 1951, 1958, 1968, 1972 and 1989 as the size and needs of the student body changed.
Although Paintsville High School has enjoyed periodically remarkable success in athletics, including state championships in basketball and baseball, it is in academics that PHS has made its most memorable mark.
As early as the late 1920s and early 1930s PHS graduates had earned doctoral degrees in education, chemistry, medicine and physics. The nation's military academies welcomed Paintsville High School graduates, one of whom attained the rank of rear admiral soon after World War II. Each year students from Paintsville achieved superior ratings at state art, music, drama and speech competitions vying against students from some of the largest high schools in the state.
It is not surprising, then, to learn that in the more than 100 years of its existence the Paintsville Independent School District was denied a school bond issue only once by the voters of Paintsville...and that was in the worst of the Great Depression.
Notable administrators and teachers included R. G. Huey, Oran C. Teater, James H. Wheeler, Paul Wade Trimble, Paul Williams, Leon Burchett, Ruth Adams, Madge Stafford, Mary Louise Stafford, Faye Green Holbrook, Hannah Jean Ward, Lorraine Wiley, Alice Jane Montgomery, Jane Bailey, Robert Baldwin, Mary McClafferty, May Williams, June Rice, Alpharetta Archer and Barbara Conley.
Among the outstanding coaches were Maurice Backer, Earl Walker, W. L. Perkins, James H. Wheeler, Walter Brugh, Charlie Adkins, Robert Baldwin and Bill Mike Runyon.
