Jump to content

Draft:Owen Middle School

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  • Comment: It's still unclear what source was used for what section. Shadow311 (talk) 19:25, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Charles D. Owen Middle School (often called Owen Middle School) is an American public middle school in Buncombe County, North Carolina, offering to teach grades 6-8. Owen Middle School is located at 730 Old US Hwy 70,Swannanoa North Carolina. It's current Principal is Bradley McMahan

Overview

[edit]

Owen Middle school's mascot is the Owen Warcolt and the school colors are maroon and grey. This school (as of 2024) is home to over 418 students, 2 counsellors and 35 teachers. The student to teacher ratio is 11:1 and the student to counselor ratio is 240:1 Owen Middle has a GreatSchools Summary rating of 4/10, as of the 2022-23 school year. This is rated by an average of Student Progress Rating, Test score Rating and Equality Rating.

Owen District Schools
Elementary Schools Middle Schools High Schools
Black Mountain Primary (K-3) Owen Middle (6-8) Owen High (9-12)
Black Mountain Elementary (4-5) Swannanoa Valley Community school (9-12)
WD Williams (K-5)

Education

[edit]

In the 2022-2023 school year, Owen Middle was in the 43rd percentile for state required math tests, in the 36th percentile for Reading and the 72nd percentile for Science. (North Carolina average percentiles are 50th for Reading, 53rd for math and 68th for science.

Athletics

[edit]
Athletics
Fall Winter Spring
Football Boy's basketball Girl's Softball
Girl's Volleyball Girl's Basketball Boy's Baseball
Cross Country Wrestling Track
Tennis Cheerleading Girl's Soccer
Boy's Soccer Golf
Cheerleading

History

[edit]

The building where Owen Middle School is today was built in 1928 and was originally called Black Mountain High School, which held grades 8-12. The High School was closed in 1954.

Drawing of Black Mountain High School Campus featured in a 1954 school year book.

The following year, 1955, Swannanoa and Black Mountain schools united to form a singular school, Charles D. Owen, named after the local textile tycoon, Charles Dexter Owen. Black Mountain High School's old mascot, the Dark Horses and Swannanoa High School's mascot, the Warriors, which combined to form a singular mascot, The Owen War Horses, which is still the current mascot for Owen High School.

In 1991, Black Mountain High School moved locations to a part of the Black Mountain Home for Children campus. This gave Owen Middle school the old campus. In 1991, both Owen High School and Owen Middle opened there doors to there new locations.

Hurricane Helene efforts

[edit]

On September 27, 2024, Owen Middle School, as well as Buncombe County were hit by Hurricane Helene. Owen Middle School was internally flooded and the Softball and Baseball fields were both destroyed. Charles D Owen and the surrounding county schools opened on October 25, 2024, 28 days after the effects of Hurricane Helene.

Who was Charles D. Owen?

[edit]

Charles Dexter Owen, (known by Charles. D Owen) was a famous textile tycoon during the 20th century.

Born on October 17, 1904 in Providence, Rhode Island. Owen moved to Dartmouth, Massachusetts, in 1930 to work at "Beacon Manufacturing", founded in 1904 by his grandfather. In 1936, after the Great Depression hit, the company decided to move the head plant to the already existing Swannanoa, North Carolina plant to access cheaper materials like water, cotton, and electricity. This Swannanoa plant was built in 1923.

Photo interior of Beacon Manufacturing, undated.

At 1 million square feet, it became the largest blanket factory in the world. The Owen family provided services, such as housing and healthcare to their employees, forcing them to stay at Beacon, because there employees could not afford housing outside of Beacon's support. “The Mill controlled everything in Swannanoa from the price of haircuts to the price of groceries." Says Gene Mill, a local growing up in Swannanoa. "The Mill provided a fire department, maintained the streets, provided water and electricity, and just about every other need you could think of. There was even a grocery store owned by The Mill, called The Home Store..."

Charles Dexter Owen died on December 2, 1990 at the age of 86. In April of 2002, Charles D. Owen II (the new owner) sold Beacon to National Distillers

13 years after the death of Charles D. Owen Senior, in September of 2003, Beacon was burned down by an arsonist.

References

[edit]

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]