Page 6 - Harnett Life Summer 2019

Erwin High School

By Morgan Brown

It’s not just goodbye

Erwin School gymnasium

when Triton became the primary high school for the area,
one of the county’s three central schools. The shift from
community schools – Angier, Coats, Dunn, Erwin, Lafay-
January 1, 1926, the town of Duke became the town ette, and Lillington – to central schools, Harnett Central,
of Erwin. The Class of 1926 was the first to graduate from Western Harnett, and Triton was challenging. For students
Erwin High School. Over the next 93 years, the campus and parents, going into a bigger school with new students
would transition from high school to elementary school, from different areas was certainly a new experience when
but no number of changes would diminish the school’s im- the norm had been for students to attend classes with the
portance within its community. Once emptied of all books, same group of people from kindergarten to graduation. The
desks, and other materials, the doors will close at the end change of mascot was essentially a change of identity.
of June and within a few months the building will be torn
down, the land leveled back out, and within the next year or As recorded in the final edition of the Hourglass yearbook,
so, new construction will begin. Board of Education Chair- Erwin wasn’t always known by its longtime mascot, the
man Jason Lemons said the overall timeline for demolition Redskins. A letter jacket from 1934 sports the “Erwin
and new construction is tentative based on funding and ap- Lions” design, and this jacket is displayed in the Erwin
proval from the county and state, in addition to material Historical Society museum. The exact date of the mascot
abatement, or the safe removal of hazardous building ma- switch may not be known, according to Joey Woodworth of
terials, and finalizing new building plans. the Erwin Historical Society, but he and current Erwin El-
ementary principal Thomas Backus noted that the change
The final graduating class of Erwin High was in 1985, was likely made in the early 1940s. Further elaborating on

Page 6 Harnett Life ~ Summer 2018

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