Caverna Board of Education is located at 1102 N. Dixie Hwy. in Cave City. Michael Crimmins/Glasgow News 1.
By GAGE WILSON
for Glasgow News 1
Seventy-five years after its consolidation, Caverna Independent Schools stands as an example of cross-county communities coming together for a common good.
The district’s birth will be celebrated this Saturday, Oct. 25, with parades in both Cave City and Horse Cave beginning at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., respectively. The event will culminate that evening, with tours of the high and middle schools, as well as a concert at 7 p.m.
The district came into being after World War II when Cave City and Horse Cave residents worked to consolidate their city school districts into one district that would straddle the Barren and Hart county line. Thus Caverna Independent Schools was formed. While thousands of students have come and gone through its halls since 1950, many have continued to support the district.
One such alumnus, Randall Curry, now sits as the mayor of Horse Cave and has backed the district since his graduation in 1967. Curry, who was in elementary school when the district desegregated in the 1957, witnessed first hand the wall of racial segregation coming down in rural areas like Barren and Hart counties.
Initially when the district consolidated, students had to travel across the county line to either the former Horse Cave School, which housed high school students, or the former Cave City School, which was used as middle school for the consolidated district. In 1957, the new high school and middle school building was finished on U.S. 31-W between the two cities, and the district was desegregated.
“My first term, when I served on the school board,” he reminisced, “I went to several trainings. I was so proud to hear that our small communities, our district, was the smoothest integration this side of the Mason-Dixon Line, and I think that speaks about the values of our community.”
During this pivotal time, Caverna became a melting pot — its classrooms and ball fields reflecting a community learning to move forward together. That spirit was embodied by two men: Professor Newton Thomas and Superintendent Ralph Dorsey. Both dedicated their lives to the district’s success, using academics and athletics alike to bridge divides. Dorsey, who also coached basketball and baseball, believed competition could bring students together where circumstance once kept them apart.
Among those students was Clarence Glover, a 1967 graduate who went on to join Western Kentucky University’s 1971 NCAA Final Four team before being drafted by the Boston Celtics. In the first book of his “My Journey” series, Glover writes about Dorsey’s lasting influence. “He was much more than just my basketball coach,” he wrote. “He was also superintendent of Caverna Schools, my baseball coach, and my mentor.”
Glover credits both Dorsey and Thomas for helping guide Caverna through integration and for modeling the values of perseverance and unity that defined its earliest years. Their efforts, he says, laid the foundation for the district’s reputation as a place where cooperation triumphed over division.
That same sense of commitment continued through leaders like Bart Weaver Jr., whose Colonel leanings come honestly. “I was born and raised in Caverna,” he said. “My dad was a coach, a teacher, a principal and a superintendent before he retired.” The football stadium where the Colonels play is named for his father, B.H. Weaver.
Weaver recounted that his junior year he took part in a regional tournament in 1979, “And I was part of that team,” he said. “We won one game in the sweet 16…that was probably one of my fondest times.”
Weaver’s parents were one of the first involved with the district, coming to the school less than a decade after its inception.
Each one of the individuals also offered some sage wisdom to the next graduating class, all with a common theme of be the best you can be, do not allow your worth to be determined by others and remember where you came from.
The last bit of advice was best embodied by Weaver’s father, “I heard he always wore purple underwear as a reminder,” he laughed. “It doesn’t matter what size the school is, because look at all the successful people that have graduated from there.”
Comments