Happy days at Robinson School, once located at the lower end of Horseshoe Bend, are now
just memories to the many boys and girls that attended the one-room building. Today the
waters of Cordell Hull Lake glimmer over the former site of the building.

Miss Catherine Pettross, one of the students pictured above, remembers vividly the days
spent in the pursuit of learning, and the happy as well as grim, days at the school.

"We had only one room in the building, but had all eight grades", Catherine recollects.

"The School had a softball team and I rememberoneday when we were playing in the yard,
a women of the community passed by with a bouquet of flowers in her arms, and after
watching a few minutes hollered to us that she would give the bouquet to the team that
won", she said, adding "We didn't get the flowers".

One of the main duties of the big boys was to go out into the woods and get kindling
wood for the big stove in the center of the room.

"Sometimes the teacher would let the girls go get the wood, after the boys had stayed
away too long the time before. She never let the boys and girls go out the same time"
Mrs Pettross remembered.

She said that another joy, instead of a job, was to go for water around a half mile away
at a spring, the one permitted to go, usually being the ones showing best school manners.

"It was a reward for being good, and believe it or not, many of the meaner boys, did lots
better in classes, just to get the privilege of sauntering along the dusty road to get water".

One of the funny things that happened at the school was when Tennessee Bilby asked Miss
Beulah Thomas, the teacher, for permission to go home each afternoon after her lessons
were complete, and not wait until school end.

"Miss Thomas said that she would permit her getting out early if she brought a note from
her parents, saying it was alright. The next day Tennessee brought a note that read: Please
let Tennessee out early, after I get my lessons' "Needless to say, it caused a lot of amusement,
and Tennessee wasn't permitted to go home early each day". Miss Pettross remembered.

Front row, from left, S. B. Kirby, Dowell Bennett, Vance Pettross Jr., Dalton Bennett,
Dewey King Knight, Kenneth Robinson, and Miss Beulah Thomas, teacher.

Second row, Roy Knight, Hazel Kirby, Tennessee Bilby, Geraldine Pettross, Pauline Pettross,
Flora Sampson, Catherine Pettross.

Third row, Melba Robinson, Aline Bennett, Christine Knight, Opal Sampson, Dorthy Kirby.

Some of the students were absent when the photographer appeared unexpectedly, and the
children had no notice to come to school dressed up. Vance Pettross (third from left,
front row) was going visitingwith his parents when school was let out that day,
so he came dressed in his new knickers.