Thanks to the help of one of our North Carolina Community Contributors, we are excited to announce that four years of Gardners High School’s yearbook, Bright Leaf, are now available to browse on DigitalNC. Gardners High School was located on Route 4 in Wilson, North Carolina before being moved to Route 3 in Elm City, North Carolina at the start of the 1958 school year. This addition of yearbooks marks the first batch of materials related to Gardners High School to be available on DigitalNC.
The new yearbooks include:
![The cover of The Brightleaf [1953], featuring an illustration of an oil lamp and flame next to a rolled diploma scroll in the middle of the golden cover.](https://www.digitalnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/brightleaf195300gard_0001-748x1024.jpg)
![The cover of the Bright Leaf [1957] that features long fields and gentle hills embossed onto the bottom half of the cover. A white illustration of a large cat with its mouth outstretched is located in the middle right area of the cover, and is diagonal to a large white embossed "57" that takes up much of the top half of the cover. The title "Bright Leaf" is printed in white towards the bottom.](https://www.digitalnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/brightleaf195709gard_0001-766x1024.jpg)
![The cover of Bright Leaf [1958]. The red cover features embossed stripe detailing, an illustration of the bust of two graduates embossed in white, and the title "Bright Leaf '58" printed in white.](https://www.digitalnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/brightleaf195810gard_0001-752x1024.jpg)
![The cover of Bright Leaf [1959]. The light gold cover features the title "Bright Leaf" written in a navy color across the lower half of the cover. Along with the title, the words "nineteen hundred fifty nine" are written up the left side of the cover in navy. In the upper half of the cover, the busts of two graduates are illustrated in navy.](https://www.digitalnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/brightleaf195911gard_0001-740x1024.jpg)
