[Granville-Hough] 21 Aug 2009 - Newell McAlpin as County Superintendent

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

 Newell McAlpin as County Superintendent. 

Now this was someone my family could relate to.  He grew up on the 
adjacent farm, went to Oak Hill School and Concord Baptist Church, and 
we knew him, his parents,  and all his brothers and sisters and their 
families.  He was elected in 1932 and was still in office when I 
departed the area in 1941.  He had a dynamic personality and was a hard 
worker.  He made steady improvements in all aspects of school work, 
getting schools affiliated (this may mean accredited), building new 
vocational high schools under the Smith-Hughes Act, which mandated 
agriculture and home economics, adding business courses and public music 
at some schools, and standardizing the school bus system.  Smith County 
was made a partner to Jones County, with a Community College (then 
called a Junior College) at Ellisville.  In 1936, the principal schools 
of the eight districts were: Taylorsville, Mize, Raleigh, Burns, 
Sylvarena, Pineville, Whiteoak, and Polkville.  The WPA history mentions 
a government-operated adult school, under the County Superintendent.  It 
may have been and adult illiteracy school for blacks in Raleigh.  At the 
time I did not know of it.  Newell also worked with other black 
communities and their schools

    Newell never gave up.  He hung in there and made improvements little 
by little.  I never understood how successful he was until 1942, when I 
visited vocational agriculture high schools in 70 of the 81 counties in 
Mississippi.  I saw schools ten years behind Smith County.  Newell was 
so successful that he spent the latter part of his career working 
statewide.  Newell was not a Sullivan-descendant, but he was half-Ware 
and had plenty of Sullivan relatives.


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 From Carol DeMar Collins comes this anonymous quote: "All prayers are 
answered when the individual doesn't tell God how to answer them."