Education

Education has always played an important role in Robeson County, from one-room schools that held all grades to large mulit-room wooden and brick buildings. Robeson County has been dotted with private academies and public schools. In the late 1980s all of the public schools in the county merged to form the Public Schools of Robeson County. Over the years six colleges have called Robeson home. Remaining now are Robeson County Community College and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. The county was also blessed to have been home to thirteen Rosenwald schools. These schools were funded in part by Julius Rosenwald, chairman of Sears Roebuck.

The Rosenwald schools were funded in part by a foundation established by Julius Rosenwald, who built Sears Roebuck into the America's leading mail order house. The foundation did not pay the entire costs of the schools but required that communities help, these schools were often called the schools that pennies and nickels built. This school started as the Robeson County Training school but was renamed after its long time leader, Robert B. Dean. (Courtesy North Carolina State Archives)

The 1931 first grade at Fairmont. (first row) Sarah Small, Letha Curry, Hazel Lovill, Mary Nancy, Odessie ?, Hilda Atkinson, Lucille Jenkins, Ima Jean McCormick, Annie Lee Britt. (second row) Carson Prevatt, Chivian Currin, Alice Townsend, Allen Gibson, Wilber Willoughby, Myrtle Britt. (third row) Ernest Klander, F.L., Byron Fields, barns Lovill, Walter Sellers and Jennings Walters. (Courtesy Hubbard-Tyner Collection)

The football team of the North Carolina Military Academy looks like they are ready to not
only play during the 1899 season but to win. (Courtesy North Carolina State Archives)