[Granville-Hough] 19 Aug 2009 - Allen Caughman and Smith County Schools

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Allen Caughman’s struggles with the Smith County Schools.

Allen Caughman was Elected Smith County Superintendent of Education in 
1916 when there were 78 white and 28 colored schools, ranging from the 
very poorest to the very best in the piney woods area. These could all 
be defined as walking distance community schools. Allen Caughman had 
taught at Oak Hill School, and it was somewhat of a model he kept in 
mind. He introduced the practice of floating bonds to finance the 
erecting of school buildings, and he started the practice of using 
wagons to carry children to school. He later introduced T-model trucks 
with home built bodies for moving the children. Road improvement had to 
go along with this innovation. He raised the qualifications for 
teachers, setting the standard that each teacher had to have at least 
two years of college. He followed the state law and set the school year 
at eight months. He also made an honest effort to enforce the compulsory 
attendance law, though I knew many teen-agers and adults who had never 
been a single day at school. By 1924, he had consolidated all rural 
schools into 20, each with new school buildings, with modern desks, 
blackboards, and teachers were paid each month for 8 months. The Smith 
County WPA history claims there were libraries, but I never saw a 
library book in grade school. Any library books must have been in the 
high schools.
Allen Caughman became a bone fide member of the Sullivan community in 
1925 when he married one of his school teachers, Myra Yelverton, 
descendant of Frederick Sullivan. He later became Chancery Clerk for the 
county and a highly respected elder citizen.