[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 55 (Wednesday, April 21, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E730-E731]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF WILEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IN RALEIGH, NORTH 
                                CAROLINA

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BOB ETHERIDGE

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 21, 1999

  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, as the former North Carolina 
Superintendent of Schools and as the Second District's Congressman, I 
rise today to call the attention of the Congress to the centennial 
anniversary of Wiley Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina.
  Last year, Wiley Elementary School was preparing to celebrate its 
75th Anniversary when student researchers discovered an earlier Wiley 
School, making the school 100 years old this year. Wiley Principal 
Cecilia Rawlins describes the institution and this occasion best by 
saying. ``Wiley School has a rich history. There are so many people in 
this community who played a part in our school, and we need to 
celebrate our history. There are many people who were a part of the 
school in the past. We want to celebrate the past so we can continue on 
that tradition toward the future.'' I am pleased to say that two 
members of my staff, Zeke Creech and Mark Hilpert, attended Wiley.
  Over the past year, the students, parents, teachers, and the 
community have been preparing for this celebration. Students have 
researched the ``old'' Wiley and ``new'' Wiley, reviewed old PTA 
scrapbooks, and visited the state Archives and History division. Some 
students who were graduating to junior high school even devoted part of 
their summer working on a video and ``memory book'' to record the 
history of Wiley. As a part of this effort, students have recorded 
Wiley's rich history, architecture and alumni memories.
  The current school was built in 1923 by C.V. York Construction Co. 
Its beautiful three story Jacobean Revival brick building was designed 
by architect Gadsen Sayre. The school was named for attorney, author, 
and educator Calvin H. Wiley, who also served as one of my predecessors 
as the first North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, then 
referred to as Common Schools, form 1852 to 1865.
  Today, Wiley is an ``International Magnet'' Elementary School and is 
one of the oldest continuously operating schools in North Carolina. As 
it has for so long, Wiley serves as a model for all our public schools 
in America to follow now and in the future.
  Mr. Speaker, I commend the long history of educational achievement 
and parental and community involvement at Wiley Elementary School and 
join students, teachers, alumni, and the community in this centennial 
celebration.
  I encourage my colleagues to join me in this celebration and to read 
the following articles from the News and Observer in Raleigh, North 
Carolina making Wiley's 100th anniversary.

       [From the Raleigh News and Observer, Aug. 26, 1998]

                 Tenacious Youths Detail School's Past

                            (By Treva Jones)

       Raleigh--Wiley Elementary School was preparing to celebrate 
     its 75th anniversary when planners realized they were off the 
     mark.
       Actually, there was an earlier Wiley School in downtown 
     Raleigh--a fact discovered by student researchers--meaning 
     the institution will be 100 years old next spring.
       The school is collecting stories and information about 
     Wiley from former students who learned their ABCs, and more, 
     in the big red brick school house on St. Mary's Street.
       ``Wiley School has a rich history,'' Principal Cecila 
     Rawlins said. ``There are many people in this community that 
     played a part in our school, and we need to celebrate our 
     history. There are many people who were a part of the school 
     in the past. We want to celebrate the past so we can continue 
     on that tradition toward the future.''
       The official celebration will be in April. Planning is 
     under way for a school pageant as well as a get-together for 
     all alumni and friends.
       ``We want to make it a fund--but educational--experience,'' 
     Rawlins said.
       Becky Leousis, a Wiley video and photography teacher, got a 
     small grant last year and used it to buy a piece of equipment 
     that adds titles and credits to videotape. One of her video 
     classes, launched specifically to look into Wiley history, 
     interviewed and videotaped Raleigh residents who attended 
     Wiley in its early years.
       Severally Wiley students spent some of their summer break 
     finishing the tape. Among them were Tom Martin, Chelsea 
     Nicolas and Sam Shaber, all of whom started sixth grade in 
     other schools this month. The three said they were so 
     interested in digging up Wiley history that they wanted to 
     finish what their class has started.
       ``It's one of the [city's] older schools. It has wonderful 
     architecture. It's just real interesting.'' Tom said.
       Students combed old school PTA scrapbooks and took a field 
     trip to the state Archives and History division to look up 
     pictures. They researched ``old'' Wiley, ``new'' Wiley, the 
     school architect and Calvin Wiley, for whom it was named. 
     They recorded their findings in a scrapbook and the video, 
     which will be shown during the celebratory activities next 
     spring.
       The current school was built in 1923 by C.V. York 
     Construction Co., by authority of the Raleigh Township School 
     Committee. The architect, Gadsen Sayre, designed the three-
     story Jacobean Revival brick building, one of several Raleigh 
     schools he designed during the 1920s.
       It was named for Calvin H. Wiley, a lawyer, author, 
     educator and the first state superintendent of public 
     instruction--his actual title was State Superintendent of 
     Common Schools--from 1852 to 1865. The first Wiley school was 
     a two-story building at West Morgan and South West streets.
       As part of a school course this fall, students will produce 
     a booklet about Wiley history and architecture and alumni 
     memories.
       Anne Bullard, co-chairman of the Wiley Anniversary 
     Committee, appealed to anyone connected with Wiley to write 
     his or her recollection of an event that happened there or 
     write about their most vivid memory of Wiley and send it to 
     the school. Accounts should be limited to 250 to 500 words, 
     Bullard said, and they should be sent before Christmas.
       ``We do hope to collect quite a lot of them,'' she said. 
     The committee also is seeking photographs of people who had a 
     connection to Wiley and photos of the building.
       Former students, teachers and parents with memories of and 
     memorabilia from Wiley school are asked to call the school 
     office at 857-7723; to write to Anne Bullard, 208 Forest 
     Road, Raleigh, N.C. 27605; or send e-mail to 
     [email protected]
                                  ____


          [From the Raleigh News and Observer, Feb. 25, 1999]

                Those old brick walls are about to talk

                            (By Jim Jenkins)

       Raleigh's Wiley Elementary School looks every inch the 
     sturdy old schoolhouse--the steep steps headed up from St. 
     Mary's Street, the deep-red edifice, the tall doors. It's 
     easy to imagine the generations of kids from Cameron Park, 
     Boylan Heights and surrounding neighborhoods tripping up the 
     steps, parents in tow, for the first day--75 years of first 
     days, in fact, at the present location, another 25 before 
     that at other locales.
       Yes, it adds up to a century, which means a centennial 
     celebration is in order, and in fact, in progress now. 
     They're doing it up right at Wiley, which is Raleigh's 
     second-oldest continuously operating school. (Washington 
     Elementary is the oldest.) Students have produced a 
     documentary film on the place, a ``memory book'' is off to 
     the publisher and a celebratory pageant is slated for April 
     23. The current generation of students at what is now an 
     ``international magnet'' elementary school, along with alums, 
     teachers and revered former principal Pearle Poole, will play 
     roles in tracing its history.
       And Wiley wants you alums out yonder, wherever yonder might 
     be, to know that you are cordially invited to join the 
     festivities at 7 p.m. on that day. Finding as many of the 
     alumni as possible remains, really, the only string yet to be 
     tied. Those who have been found already have enriched the 
     memory book considerably, and there is no shortage of what 
     schools call ``distinguished'' alums on Wiley's old rolls, 
     among them a former editor of the Wall Street Journal, the 
     late Vermont Royster, and still-active local pillars like 
     attorneys Bill Joslin and Robert McMillan.
       If few of us living and breathing types make it to a 
     personal centennial, it's certainly true that not many 
     schools light 100 candles either. What with the need to 
     ``upgrade'' for the computer age, or to replace structures 
     that wear and fray, or to honor some illustrious personage 
     from a more modern era with the naming of a school, this sort 
     of thing just doesn't happen that often.
       (Wiley, in fact, has through the years survived a push by 
     some officials to sell it or to demolish it and replace it. 
     Among those who argued for saving it was former Mayor Smedes 
     York, whose father, Raleigh developer Willie York, carried 
     water to construction workers when the present school was 
     being built in the early `20s.)
       If the vivid memories of Wiley's legions of long ago are 
     any indication, we might be better off preserving the old 
     structures whenever possible and thus nurturing the loyalties 
     of those who learned therein. For their recollections are 
     part of a city's heritage.

[[Page E731]]

       Consider Frank Jeter Jr.'s offering for the memory book; he 
     (still a Raleigh resident) was a 1st grade student in the 
     fall of 1924. ``Wiley School,`` he wrote, ``was actually 
     one of several public works improvements made in the early 
     1920s. For those of us who lived on Forest Road, this was 
     the time when they paved the red clay street with blacktop 
     . . . and also installed the sidewalk that made it 
     possible for us to build speedy cares, using old lawn 
     mower wheels, that could race down the hill in the 300 
     block.''
       Or the recollections of Nancy Hobbs Banks of Raleigh, who 
     enrolled in Wiley in 1942, when her father, Dr. A.J. Hobbs, 
     was appointed pastor of Edenton Street Methodist Church: ``. 
     . . Most of us had brothers or other relatives in the 
     services. Ration books were distributed to families who 
     waited in long lines in the gym. We had occasional air raid 
     drills and were marched to the auditorium where we squatted 
     between the rows of seats until the `all clear' sounded.''
       Mrs. Banks has another lasting memory of the place; she met 
     her husband, Myron, there.
       Alum Melissa Harris, like many of her classmates from the 
     early 1970s, recalls the controversy that erupted when in 
     1972 Principal Ben Tench encouraged students to build ``Wiley 
     City'' on the back yard of the school. ``We (the students) 
     literally built ourselves a small city--complete with a 
     courthouse, and a jail and an elected mayor.''
       Neighborhood protests led to its demolition, Harris 
     recalled, ``but no before realizing the diversity of tastes 
     and the power of unified voices.'' Harris must have learned 
     even more; she is an associate professor of architecture at 
     the University of Michigan.
       Wiley today is run by a dynamo, Principal Cecilia Rawlins, 
     and its international magnet status invigorates the school 
     with five languages taught, a ``country of the month,'' and a 
     focus on the different cultures of the world in the teaching 
     of many subjects. If the grand old structure is a monument to 
     memory for some, it is as well a monument to the robust 
     health of public education when it is nurtured and sustained 
     by neighborhoods, by involved parents, by dedicated teachers 
     and by enthusiastic administrators. Wiley is a healthy 100. 
     The candles, if you please.

     

                          ____________________