Text by Michael E.C. Gery | Photos by Duane Salstrand

• Introduction
• The Legacy
• “There's Nothing I Can't Do”
• Restoring the Core Values
• Download the full article as a

Restoring the Core Values

The Warren County Training School alumni association was formed 24 years ago not only to keep alumni in touch with each another but also to revive the spirit of the school itself. The association has nearly 1,000 members and maintains active chapters in Philadelphia, New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Washington, D.C. They purchased the school buildings and grounds. They began the $2.5 million campaign for restoring the main school building that recently was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. They set up a health and wellness program for the local community as well as senior citizens and veterans programs. They meet monthly in the cafeteria building that they themselves renovated not long ago. They conduct periodic fundraisers and workbees on the grounds. They established a scholarship fund which has awarded more than $45,000 to worthy graduates of today’s Warren County High School.

Frank Hendrick, the association’s president, speaks of his father and uncle who attended the school as boarders in its early years. His grandmother, who raised him, so revered the foundation of the school that she named Mr. Hendrick’s father “Julius,” probably to honor Julius Rosenwald.

“We remain under the watchful eye of this school,” he says. “That’s how strong it is. We feel a need to perpetuate the culture that developed here, the core values we learned here. We feel a need especially at this time to return those values to this community.”

As if to demonstrate that such a drive can succeed, the son of Larry Sledge is a board member of the alumni association. Prince Sledge graduated from Warren County High School in 2002 and, as the first recipient of the Cheek-Washington Scholarship, he studies English at Elizabeth City State University. “My family, my teachers, these alumni,” he said at an association meeting recently, “have inspired me all along to do my best, to go on to other accomplishments. I appreciate being a part of this family.”

Contact information

WCTS-NWHS Friends
& Alumni Association
P.O. Box 122
Wise, NC 27594

Frank Hendrick’s phone:

(757) 826-0835

Charles Jefferson’s phone:

(252) 456-4731