A photo of the 1967 annual staff of the Stripes yearbook from the Martin Memorial School of Nursing
A new batch of yearbooks from Surry County are now digitized and available on DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, the Mount Airy Regional Museum of History. Included in this collection are nearly two dozen yearbooks from schools across Mount Airy and Surry County, dating from the 1920s to the 1960s.
These yearbooks contain individual portraits, class photos, as well as photographs highlighting student activities and clubs, sports teams and events like Homecomings, faculty, and student activities. Some of the yearbooks also include class and school histories. Readers can also find in some of these yearbooks “last wills and testaments”, where the graduating class leaves behind objects, memories, and skills to the next class. There are also class prophecies, where the students imagined where they would be years down the road.
Follow the links below to browse the yearbooks from the schools included in this batch:
A 1958 photo of the Franklin High School football team in front of the school.
These yearbooks represent a valuable addition to DigitalNC, as they show what life was like across Mount Airy and Surry County throughout the 20th century. To see more from the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History, please visit their partner page, or check out their website.
Today we’re taking a look at the most-viewed items on DigitalNC.org for 2018. Yearbooks and newspapers are the most populous and popular items on our site, so it’s no surprise that they took four of the five slots. What rose to the top and why? Take a look below.
This year our most viewed single item on DigitalNC was the 1981 Pertelote yearbook from Brevard College.
The Pertelote was popular due to the apprehension of a mailbombing suspect in October of this year and his ties to several North Carolina schools. Cesar Sayoc was a student at Brevard College in the 1980s and his photograph can be found in several locations within the 1981 yearbook, including this club photo from page 134.
On a lighter note, the second most popular item on our site was a film from the early 1980s entitled “The Outer Banks Fisherman.” It features Freshwater Bass Champion Roland Martin fishing on the Outer Banks. This film had a few particular days of internet popularity when it was mentioned on a couple of North Carolina hunting and fishing forums.
#3 North Wilkesboro Journal-Patriot Newspaper, December 8, 1941
The third most popular single item on DigitalNC was the December 8, 1941 issue of the North Wilkesboro Journal-Patriot newspaper. You can tell from this striking headline that it was published the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II. This paper generally received referrals via Google all year, but we’re not sure which search terms were leading users to this page so consistently.
#4 The Franklin Press and Highlands Maconian Newspaper, April 23, 1953, page 9
Many of our referrals come from Facebook, and that was the case with this fourth most popular item. It was featured in the Facebook Group “You May Be From Franklin NC If…” The original poster stated that Group members had looked for photos of the Old County Home over the years, and that they had recently uncovered this newspaper page which includes pictures of the Home’s state in 1953.
#5 The Daily Tar Heel Newspaper, September 2, 1986
Facebook sharing also boosted this item’s rating, after the UNC-Chapel Hill University Archives asked for memories of the legal drinking age being raised to 21 in 1986 and the “send-0ff” on Franklin Street before the law came into effect. They shared a quote from a police officer as well as a link to the article below, which documents the damage and disgruntlement caused by the downtown party.
Thanks for coming on our tour of the top DigitalNC items from this year. For the curious, we topped 4 million pageviews and 400K users in 2018! We’re looking forward to working with partners to share even more of North Carolina’s cultural heritage in 2019.
The following microfilmed newspapers were selected for digitization in 2017-2018. Thanks to supplemental funding from the State Library of North Carolina, we were able to complete more reels than in previous years. Reels were chosen from nominations according to our Criteria for Selecting Newspapers to Digitize from Microfilm.
The Stanly County Museum and Montgomery County Public Library recently asked us to add some items they digitized to DigitalNC. There are a range of items, from late 18th century business documents in the Forrest Family Manuscript Collection to ledgers from stores in Montgomery County, to this striking panoramic photograph of Lillian Mill.
Harold F. Krauss, Jr., Mascot of the Troy High School Senior Class, 1927
While we typically associate a school mascot with a large, costumed character or animal, young children also served as mascots in many North Carolina High Schools and Colleges. Several examples can be found in the digitized yearbooks from the Wayne County Public Library which are now available at DigitalNC.org. This Flickr set shows other young mascots in yearbooks from across North Carolina.
Mascots Connie Miller and Martin Sutton
Other than a name and an adorable picture, none of the yearbooks give much information about the children, how they were chosen, or what duties came with being a mascot. Officially, a mascot is any person, item, or animal thought to bring luck so hopefully these young children brought good fortune to their schools.
The “Digital Davie” exhibit includes a neat pictorial map of the small mill town of Cana, N.C. The map depicts Cana at the turn of the 20th century. It is based on the memories of local residents and was presented to Cana native Flossie Martin on her 100th birthday.
Materials in Digital Davie are shared online by the Davie County Public Library.
This blog is maintained by the staff of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center and features the latest news and highlights from the collections at DigitalNC, an online library of primary sources from organizations across North Carolina.
