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Elementary F Will Be Called Rock Rest: Named for a Long Ago School and Hamlet at the Crossroads Site

Posted on: Sunday, 12 February 2006, 12:00 CST

By Emily S. Achenbaum, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.

Feb. 12--The new elementary school in the Wingate area will be named to honor a small, historic community: Rock Rest.

The name Rock Rest Elementary was approved by the Union County Board of Education Tuesday. The school, previously known as Elementary F, is scheduled to open in the middle of the 2006-07 academic year.

The elementary is being built on 42 acres of farmland at Old Pageland-Monroe and White Store roads. Board members said many people in the community requested the school be named Rock Rest.

Rock Rest was the name of a school at the crossroads in the 1890s. Around the turn of the last century, Rock Rest also had a post office and weather observation tower, according to local historians who gave information to the school board. A Rock Rest tomato club canned tomatoes during World War I, and the Rock Rest Homemakers' Extension Club is still in existence.

Rock Rest Elementary will serve some Monroe and Wingate students who were previously assigned to East, Wingate and Walter Bickett elementaries.

Rock Rest's enrollment is expected to be largely black and Hispanic -- some estimates say the school will have an 80 percent or 90 percent minority population. Some board members were specifically interested in honoring minorities because of the school's makeup. The school board also discussed suggestions for naming areas within the school, such as the cafeteria and gymnasium, after minority leaders.

However, the board decided to wait and allow the school to generate its own ideas for naming different student areas.

Another naming committee is considering names for the new middle school and high school (known as "B") in the Marvin area.

Emily S. Achenbaum: (704) 289-6576

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.

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Source: The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.)

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