This lunchroom, likely built in the early 1950s, is all that remains of the old Irwinville High School. It now serves as the Irwinville Community Center and hosts many community and family reunions. This school is best remembered for its basketball team, the Farmers, who won state championships in 1947, 1950, and 1951. The legendary Wallace “Country” Childs (1918-2006) was their formidable coach, and in the consecutive title years of 1950 and 1951 they chalked up 76 wins, a record only recently broken by Cuthbert’s Randolph-Clay High School. The school closed in 1963.
The lunch room was built in the early 40. I have a picture of it before the OAK tree was removed. I gave a copy of it to Mrs Kilgore to be framed and displayed.. The best I can find out it was part of the project housing and other development that was built after WW2..
I started to school in Irwinville when I was 7 years old, that was in 1956 and went through the 7th grade when we were all transfered to Ocilla. The school in Irwinville did not close until 1963.
I somehow just saw this response, and I updated the date. Thank you.
We moved from Irwinville in December of 1964 and I was in the 6th grade so that 1963 closure date is wrong. I don’t know exactly what year it closed but it wasn’t in ‘63.
I sure remember this old lunchroom! I went to Irwinville Elementary back in the 60’s. We had just moved up from Ocala, FL and lived on the Rebecca Route. Caroll Singletary was my bus driver and when he was out my best friend Donna Walker’s daddy Charles Walker drove the bus. Sometimes he would stop at one of the stores by the school and let us get off and buy candy! Can’t you see that happening these days? We lived in Ga. 4 years, until I was in the 6th grade, before returning to Ocala to live. Here’s the names of my siblings that also attended the school and ate in the lunchroom everyday (lunch was .25 cents!)…Judy, Terry, Jean & Mike…Todd was about 4 when we moved and had not yet started school. My most recent visit to the lunchroom was in April of 2010. The HOWELL FAMILY had their Family Reunion there. It was the first time in 45 yrs that I had set foot back inside. I had a ton of memories flood back. I remember my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Land, always made us clean our plates before we could leave the lunchroom to go outside and play till break was over. There used to be a big bell right outside the door and if you were the lucky one that day you got to ring the bell to signal the end of lunch. I was saddened to see that both the school house and the auditorium had both been torn down. I would have loved to have gone back through my old classrooms…Let me see…3rd grade was Mrs. Land…4th grade was Mrs. Thompson…5th grade was Miss White (boy did we take advantage of her 1st year teaching!) and 6th grade was Mrs. Fletcher who also doubled as the Principal. Ahhh, the good old days….where did the time go?
Was Gordon Howell your dad?
Yes my daddy was Gordon Howell. He passed away at 87 on May 27, 2016. I learned later on that your daddy bought our house and moved it across the road and you later lived in it. Sadly we never went back to visit the house until shortly after daddy died. My mother developed Alzheimer’s and my sister Judy and I wanted to take her to see it one last time. There was no trace of it. But we did go by granny and papa’s house up the road. And oh my goodness! Everything looked so small! The road going up to the house always seemed so long but it really wasn’t. And all that remained was just the house. It was good seeing it one last time. My mother passed away 2 years later.
Jennie Howell
Ocala, FL