West Rusk Alumni Association
The mission of the West Rusk Alumni Association is to foster lifelong support for West Rusk High School through programs, activities and events for it’s alumni, future alumni, and friends who are forever Raider Proud. The West Rusk Alumni Association provides scholarships to West Rusk High School current seniors to help further their education. The association also contributes to on campus projects and for school improvements and beautification.
4 Schools Become One – West Rusk
London High School
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London School had its beginnings in 1877, as a large frame building at the crossroads of the Henderson to Overton and Turnertown to Kilgore highways. It was not until the discovery of oil in 1930 that the little town of London and its school would boom.
By 1932, the London School District had become the richest rural school in the world. This led to the construction of beautiful school buildings that were considered state of the art. However, on March 18, 1937, the five-year-old junior and senior high school building exploded due to gas accumulation in its crawl space, and 294 students and teachers lost their lives.
The London junior and senior high building was rebuilt and is still in use today. However, just as the discovery of oil led to the increase of pupils, the depletion of the oil field led to the decrease, and in 1965 London schools consolidated with Gaston schools and became West Rusk.
Lincoln High School
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Lincoln school was located between Hwy 42 and FM 2012 on land purchased from Sam White, Jr. for $1100.00. The students moved into their new building in May of 1959. L.C. Hammons was principal at the school where the children received instructions from the first through eighth grades. The high school students still attended Kilgore Colored High School. There were approximately one half dozen teachers in the school when it integrated with the newly consolidated West Rusk County CISD in 1965-66. All the ninth through twelfth grade students attended the High School at New London, and all the seventh and eighth grade students attended the junior high school on the Gaston Campus at Joinerville. The elementary students had their choice of continuing their studies at Lincoln elementary or attending the elementary school in new London. For two years, some of the students elected to stay at Lincoln School, and after that time all students were attending the newly consolidated West Rusk County CISD.
Goldsberry High School
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Julius Rosenwald was a Jewish philanthropist who funded a number of schools for black students throughout the South in the 1930s. Mt. Moriah school was moved to a new Julius Rosenwald building on County Road 478. Ms. Lucy Jones, of Limestone County, served as principal as this move took place. Principal Jones named the school/building Goldsberry Chapel in honor of a school board trustee, Arthur C. Goldsberry.
In the late 1930s or early 1940s, the Davis School teachers and students were moved to the Goldsberry campus.
In the 1950s a new two-wing building with a principal’s office in the front was built on Farm Road 13 under the direction of the school board. That building continues to stand today as privately owned. In the late 1950s, high school aged students were bused to the local town to attend Henderson Colored High School.
In the mid-1960s with the beginnings of integration, came freedom of choice. A small group of students chose to attend classes on the Gaston campus. In 1965, the Gaston and London school systems merged to form the West Rusk County Consolidated ISD. The Goldsberry campus remained, but each year more students elected to attend classes on the Gaston campus. Ultimately, all middle school/junior high school students were moved to the Gaston campus. In the late 60s or early 70s, the Goldsberry campus was closed.
Gaston High School
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In 1925, the Gaston School was formed when Hugh L. and Irene Gaston donated nine acres. The three room school had an average of 70-85 students with a school term of about 6 months. The Gaston Independent School District was created and established around December 22, 1931. The little school went from 90 students to over 700 almost overnight due to the East Texas Oil Field Discovery Well. In 1932 it was officially declared the largest rural school in the world. The enrollment jumped to over 1800 students. The first graduating class was in 1933 from a school having first grade through tenth. The school mascot, the Red Devil, was adopted in 1932 and the school chosen colors of maroon and white began. The last graduating class of Gaston was in 1965; Gaston and New London schools consolidated to form West Rusk County Consolidated Independent School District.
The President’s Message
Hello West Rusk Alumni and friends, I trust you and yours are coping with the pandemic and are on the way to getting back to normal.
Thank you for visiting our new website. Hopefully it will give us a better way of communication with our graduates and friends of the school. When West Rusk was established in 1965, it was formed by consolidating four different schools: London, Gaston, Lincoln and Goldsberry. The London Ex-Student association has been active over the years continuing the “Day of Remembrance” and offering scholarships to graduating seniors who had a connection to the school. The West Rusk Alumni Association has been in existence for about 8 years and has tried to support graduating seniors from West Rusk with Scholarships as the funds permit. The Boards of each organization have agreed to combine the efforts of the London and West Rusk Groups into one body. The new West Rusk Alumni Board is that body and we represent all the past students from each of these schools that formed West Rusk High School in 1965.
The Day of Remembrance will continue every other year with next year, March 19, 2022, being the 85th anniversary. We hope to make it a special occasion and an opportunity for an all school reunion. We would encourage each class to focus around that event to plan some reunion type activities. Maybe a few classes could join up with others and put something together.
The new Board of West Rusk Alumni Association (WRAA) is changing our membership offering. The new classes of membership will be; Graduates of West Rusk High, London High, Gaston High, Goldsberry High, Lincoln High, and friends and family of these schools.
In order to increase our membership we need to focus on the graduates, friends and family. We are establishing a point contact person in each class to track down their classmates and friends to capture their contact information and help with information flow to the class. If you would like to volunteer for that role in your class, please contact us at WRAA1966@gmail.com. It would be great if we had someone in every class taking that role.
I want to thank all the Board Members for their contributions and look forward to you getting involved with our alumni group.
Thank you and Go Raiders!
Danny Dorsey ‘67
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