Published: July 05, 2009 07:29 pm      

Final yearbook to trace Owls' 79-year flight

WAR — A historic McDowell County high school is preparing for its final school year.

Although school is out for the summer, officials are already busy planning for the final yearbook for Big Creek High School. They are hoping to include graduating classes all the way from 1932 to 2010 in the final commemorative publication.

“Hanging deep in the halls of Big Creek are framed pictures of every graduating class with the exception of 1934 and 1935,” Debbie Cline, sponsor of the school’s year book, said. “In talking with both alumni and the yearbook staff, our idea now is to digitally photograph the class pictures individually and give each one a half page in the last year book as part of a special alumni section.”

Cline said the school is hoping someone from the community can help with finding pictures of the graduating classes of 1934 and 1935.

“What amazed me is when I first went to Big Creek is that somebody through all of those years took the time to keep those photos in the hallways,” Cline said. “Somebody has kept those going here.”

Cline said the school is working with David McNeil with Grubb Photo in Bluefield to try to reproduce all of the photos for the yearbook.

“For many graduates — or even children of graduates — this yearbook might be their only and last opportunity to have a copy of their class picture,” she said. “The final yearbook will also include other vintage photographs as well as trivia pertaining to the 79 year history of the high school.”

Big Creek High School gained national attention back in 1999 with the release of the motion picture “October Sky” that chronicled the true story of the Rocket Boys of McDowell County. Homer Hickam, and his fellow Rocket Boys, are all graduates of Big Creek High School. Ironically, the school identified as Big Creek High School in the movie was actually a school located in Tennessee where much of the movie was filmed.

School officials in McDowell County have been talking about closing Big Creek High School since the year 2000. The new Riverview High School will open in Bradshaw next fall consolidating and closing the existing Big Creek and Iaeger high schools.

“Probably, the feelings are mixed,” Cline said of the looming school closure. “I think that with any progress there has to be change. But the feelings are still just mixed. That is one of the reasons why I still wanted to do this was to honor the so many folks who have graduated.”

While the school welcomes help from the community, Cline said it would be extremely difficult to identify every graduate by name over the past 79 years.

“The records are just gone,” she said. “So what we are going to do is put the photographs in there. We have set up a website where people can go to that website, and then click contact and that goes back to my e-mail.”

The website can be reached at www.2010bchsyearbook.com.

Cline said she has already received several e-mails from graduates of the school with interesting stories to tell.

– Contact Charles Owens at cowens@bdtonline.com