A new book to be released Feb. 1 features the stories
of 21 former students of the Crossnore School who rose above their
circumstances.
“Mountains of Hope” tells the dramatic stories of former
students who achieved success beyond anyone’s expectations
when they applied the education, love, stability and life lessons
learned at Crossnore School.
From a U.S. Representative, to a Navy admiral, to a North Carolina
state treasurer managing billions of dollars, to an early NASCAR
engine builder, to simply overcoming years of hospitalizations
as a result of extensive burns, these former students’ stories
are told to give others hope.
“Crossnore School has provided mountains of hope since 1913
when Drs. Mary Martin and Eustace Sloop first trudged up the hills
and opened a boarding school and a hospital among mountain folk
and farmers who didn’t even have a road to market,”
said Phyllis Crain, Crossnore School executive director since
1999, who wrote the students’ stories with Norman Jameson,
editor of the Biblical Recorder, statewide newspaper of North
Carolina Baptists.
“We love every one of our students and marshal every resource
to help them overcome the odds,” Crain said. “These
fascinating, personal, sometimes heart rending stories will stake
the claim anew for the value or residential education to effect
lasting, powerful change in the lives of children and families.”
“Without Crossnore School, I doubt I would have accomplished
anything,” said the now deceased Bartlett Farmer, who walked
almost seven miles each Monday to attend classes.
He sometimes woke to see rat tracks through snow that covered
the blanket he slept under in a dorm.
The area’s largest tree grower was playing football in a
cow pasture with his teenage buddies—each of whom was living
hand to mouth—when Pop Jarvis offered them all a spot on
his team at Crossnore.
Mike Stanley turned his tears over his parents’ death into
pursuit of education and a 25-plus year career of service at Appalachian
State University, now serving as assistant comptroller.
Harlan Boyles found a receptive atmosphere at Crossnore when he
was struck by polio and became North Carolina’s most beloved
and respected state treasurer.
Wadell Wilson designed the first engine to pull a NASCAR racer
around the track at 200 miles per hour.
U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx and her mother helped to keep the mountain
art of weaving alive before she went to Washington, D.C. to represent
her part of North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Freda Hyams Nicholson helped to plan and then lead one of America’s
earliest and finest hands-on children’s museums, Discovery
Place in Charlotte.
The names will be familiar to many in western North Carolina and,
in some cases, to many throughout the state.
“Mountains of Hope,” a hardcover book with a full color
dust jacket, will be available for $25 from Crossnore School.
For more information, call (828) 733-4305 or write to P.O. Box
249, Crossnore, N.C. 28616.
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