Owen School

1st row: Rodney Brown, Rawles Hodge, Eugene Guess, Bruce Hodge, Doyle Polk, Shelly Asbridge, Chastine Maxfield.

2nd row: Mildred Riley, Dorothy Brown, Mary Brown, Teacher- Mr. E. Jeffrey Travis, Billie Polk, Evalee Myers

3rd row: Mildred Hodge, Elma Brown, Georgia Polk, Nina Brown, Anna Simpkins, Margaret Polk, Fannie Simpkins, Kelly Asbridge.

4th row: Donald Kirk, Vernon Maxfield, Leroy Brasher, J. E. Asbridge, Harold Hodge, Raymond Riley.

Owen school was located on S. R. 855 N. from the community of Frances.  It was located on the same place that the Owen Cemetery is now located.

The school's time period in history was the 1800's until 1953 when many of the little one room county schools were closed and consolidated with one larger school, when it closed what few students were left were bused to the Frances Elementary  School. 

Here is parts of an essay written in 1937 by one of the students.  It was shared by Doyle Polk and was written by one of his older sisters that attended school there.

The school house is surrounded by a natural forest on all but one side.  During the hot summer days at the beginning of the school term we have shade on all sides and it is usually pleasant in the school ho use until in the late afternoon.  The noon day sun shines in the front door, and we have a mark on the floor to tell us when it is time to eat.

We are not blessed with drinking water like some schools, but have to carry our water from a spring far down in the field.  But it is fun to go after a bucket of water.

In the winter when it is cold we can run and skate on our slide as we have a pond right in the corner of our school yard.  Sometime we fall while skating, but this in only fun after it quits hurting.

There has been a school here longer than the oldest people can remember.  First it was a log house with puncheon floor, and split log seats, then a boxed house.  Then when Mr. Asel Hodge and Alvery Elder were boys, just big enough to use a hammer and saw, they built a new house, framed, with two windows to a side.  One door in the front and one window in the rear where we watched the squirrels play.  

While our school house is old and small, the water far removed, the desks worn and too few, it is still the dearest place on earth to me.  I may live long and travel far from here, my duties in the future require that I live in other communities, yet the loving friendships formed, the pleasant associations formed, the many truths taught by my teachers, all go to make "Old Owen School" a place I will always remember.