Everyone understands that some local schools no longer exist, whether through consolidation or closing. What rankles long-time residents is the utter disdain from the current and previous administrators of the Charleston County School District for the history of the schools. You only need attempt to track down a yearbook from the seventies from any local high school, with the possible exception of Burke, the only high school allowed to keep its original name, to find this truth.
So it is bittersweet to see that someone actually cared to rehang a specially-commissioned portrait of FDR in the current Moultrie Middle School and that a portrait of Francis Marion has returned:
"According to Town of Mount Pleasant archives, Gen. William Moultrie High School, originally on Pitt St., relocated to Coleman Blvd. in 1944. In 1973, students moved into the new Wando High School on Whipple Road. The old high school became Moultrie Middle School. This facility was demolished in 2007 and the new building was completed in 2009. That was the third Moultrie School to be built on site. The Moultrie Schools were named in honor of Gen. William Moultrie, the highest ranking South Carolina officer during the Revolutionary War and hero of the 1776 Battle of Fort Sullivan, which was later renamed Fort Moultrie. He fought in the S.C. Militia during the 1761 Cherokee Wars, and served in the Royal Assembly and first Provincial Congress. He was elected Lieutenant Governor and was Governor twice. While Governor, he relocated the capital from Charleston to Columbia and established the county system and county court system. Moultrie designed the first S.C. state flag during the American Revolution."
"Through the years school archives were lost and sometimes thrown away. [italics mine] Some were even given away. And that turned out to be a blessing in terms of a portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt."
"Common tradition is for a graduating class to gift something to the school. The class of 1944 commissioned a portrait of Gen. William Moultrie by local artist and actress Alicia Rhett. The following graduating class commissioned an oil portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also by Rhett.
"Talk of those portraits took place recently between a local mother and daughter. Doris Dayhoff, a 1944 graduate of Moultrie explained to her daughter Linda Dayhoff Smith, a 1970 graduate, the significance of those and other gifts.
"This got Smith to wondering what had become of the portraits. She called the Charleston County School District and officials there were unsure. [italics mine] The new principal Ryan Cumback was too.
"Smith happened to run into an old family friend at the grocery store recently. He just so happened to be a Moultrie graduate, retired Wando teacher and local historian. Why is this important? Well, when she told him what she was up to regarding the missing portraits, he smiled and said he was in possession of the Roosevelt portrait. The school's fifth commencement gift had been offered to him when items were being removed from the old Wando in preparation for the move to the new facility.
"I almost fainted in aisle two of the grocery store," Smith said. "Of course I asked him if he would return it to the school and he was happy to do it."
"As a teacher at Wando he frequented the library because he was a social studies teacher. There were often stacks of books that the librarians were disposing of or giving away, but on one particular occasion there were stacks of portraits. Among them was the Roosevelt.[italics mine]"
"I looked in corner and saw that it was an Alicia Rhett who played India Wilkes in 'Gone with Wind.' I thought that really it should not be thrown away and I took it for safe keeping," Williams said."
"Also, Roosevelt was the president of Williams' childhood. A president during a time of war. It was important to Williams that the portrait be salvaged." Not important to CCSD, however!
"In a small ceremony Williams, Smith, Dayhoff, Cumback and district officials met to return and hang the FDR portrait in it's proper place in the halls of Moultrie Middle. Talk turned to the missing Gen. Moultrie portrait when Cumback realized they were referring to the very one hanging just down the hall in the vestibule. It was removed from the wall for inspection and in light script a scrawled message on the back read, "given back by class of 1960." During a reunion they think took place in 1986 which would have been their 25th reunion. The story behind this is unknown."
"As of last week, the only other Rhett portrait that was missing is that of Francis Marion given by the Class of 1946. On Friday, an anonymous person came forward to return the painting."
How does an area that prides itself on its history put up with this stuff?
CCSD has shown its utter disregard for the past.
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