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Greg Oliver

Oconee County School Superintendent Fred Hamilton will end his 56-year education career when his part-time position formally expires at the end of this month. Hamilton, shown here outside the school district's offices in Walhalla, also served as superintendent of education from 1963 through 1981, and the Fred P. Hamilton Career Center was named in his honor several years ago.

WALHALLA — It’s hard to think of education in Oconee County without Fred Hamilton, who has spent 47 of his 56 years in the school district as a teacher, assistant principal, school board member, area superintendent and full-time and part-time superintendent.

However, that will soon be the case as the part-time superintendent position to which Hamilton was elected in 2003 will expire at the end of this month. Oconee County residents voted to abolish the position, which pays $7,000 per year, in an advisory referendum held in 2006. During that same election, the term of the position was reduced from four to two years.

But shed no tears for the man even adults still respectfully refer to as “Mr. Hamilton.” Hamilton, who will turn 81 in August, said he is looking forward to the future with his wife, Beatrice, whom he lovingly says still keeps him in line, as well as their grandchildren.

Although Hamilton’s friendly demeanor and larger than life presence will no longer be visible at Oconee County School Board of Trustees meetings on the second and third Tuesday evenings of each month, his impact on education in the district and his leadership skills in navigating the district through both exciting and turbulent times will forever be felt.

“It’s been a very pleasant experience,” Hamilton said during a recent interview. “I’ve had different people to work with, but they were interested in doing what is right for the school district and the children. That never changes.”

From teacher to area superintendent

Hamilton himself is a product of the Oconee County School District, crediting his parents for instilling a strong emphasis on education.

“They were good parents who were farmers and never let us stay out of school one day to pick cotton or haul corn,” Hamilton said.

A 1945 graduate of Seneca High School, Hamilton enrolled at what was then called Clemson College and earned his bachelor’s degree in 1950. After completing a stint in the U.S. Army, including 14 months in Korea, Hamilton began his teaching career in 1953 at Westminster High School.

“It was in a two-story building that is now boarded up,” he said. “I taught part of the time in a pre-fab building bought by some volunteers.”

In 1956, Hamilton returned to Seneca High School to teach and remained there until he became area superintendent of Fair Play.

Leading Oconee County

In November 1962, Hamilton, who had earned his master’s degree at Clemson University two years earlier, was elected as Oconee County School Superintendent. When he formally assumed those duties in January 1963, the makeup of the school board was much different than today.

Hamilton said the board consisted of 12 members — two each from Seneca, Walhalla and Westminster and one each from Keowee, Tamassee, Salem, Fair Play, Oakway and Cleveland in the Madison community.

“It was alright — it was really no different,” Hamilton said. “They, of course, had their own interests, probably more so than they do now. But, even now, you have your five area trustees who are still county trustees and function that way.

“It all comes down to this — it doesn’t matter how they’re elected, it’s who’s elected, what their interests are and what their concept of their role is.”

One of the first major issues brought before Hamilton involved a push for a new Walhalla High School — an issue again at the forefront more than 40 years later.

“There’s been a big push, and rightly so, because Walhalla High School was built in 1966 and it was not wired for the kind of technology that exists today,” he said. “The entire layout was for more than 650 students and now they have close to 900.

“We’ve had some additions there, but the big thing is it was not designed to accommodate that many students and the athletic programs as well as the fact that probably half of the students drive their cars to school. The parking area has to be much larger than it was in 1966.”

Hamilton said whether Walhalla and Tamassee-Salem middle and high schools are consolidated isn’t the issue, but that the time has come for a new Walhalla High School.

“I agree with what the Walhalla people, including the principal (Evie Hughes) and athletic director (Hal Dunlap) say and I agree with them 100 percent.”

Rise of vocational education

Fred Hamilton’s name adorns the career center that sits in the Bountyland area and for good reason. It was during Hamilton’s time in office that the school district received Appalachian Council of Governments (ACOG) money to start a vocational school.

“We saw a need at the time for classes, such as auto mechanics and machine shop,” Hamilton said. “There were three classes going on at the time I became superintendent, but those were held in separate locations where travel was difficult.”

Once money became available, with 90 percent of the funding coming from Appalachian funds and the State Department of Education and the remaining 10 percent locally, the vision became a reality.

“I think maybe there was a competition for state money because Tri-County Technical College was having a little problem getting students and they started offering classes similar to what we had at the vocational school,” he said.

But the Fred P. Hamilton and Tri-County Technical College today enjoy a close relationship, with a partnership formed several years ago between the School District of Oconee County and Tri-County Technical College to expand the nursing and health science programs. In addition, the school district agreed to expand the Hamilton Career Center to include an anatomy and physiology laboratory and two classrooms.

The school district (along with neighboring school districts) also partner with Tech through the “Gateway to College” program.

“It’s evolved — just like everything else, it evolves,” Hamilton said.

Integration

Hamilton was also in office during integration that featured the closing Blue Ridge High School, which served African-American students, and moving students to Seneca High School as well as integration of the elementary and middle schools.

“We had some opposition, but I don’t ever think I received but one call about that and that came from a good friend of mine,” Hamilton said. “Before we got off the phone, he had sort of changed his mind. It’s turned out good for all of us.”

Strike threat

One of the most difficult experiences Hamilton faced during 18 years as superintendent was dealing with the possibility of a teacher’s strike in 1979 — something hard to fathom these days considering South Carolina’s teachers are not unionized and the state itself is a Right to Work state.

“It started when I was at one of the schools visiting teachers and it was contract time,” Hamilton said. “Teachers were wondering if they should sign their contracts, but I told them to go ahead and sign because Oconee County Council had always taken care of its teachers and, on the teacher pay scale, we had been no less than third in the state.

“But we didn’t get the money to give them a raise and our money came from County Council.”

Hamilton, who had been in office about 15 years by that time, said the thing that probably hurt him the most was the manner in which some of the teachers responded.

“I had done everything in my power to get the money to fund the pay scale and did everything over 12 to 15 years and then to have people marching around out front of our office and saying ‘Hamilton is a Liar’ — that’s the lowest point of the thing and should never have happened.”

But Hamilton said he harbors no grudges against the teachers involved in the movement.

“I’ve said it before — they got some bad advice,” he said. “I would say a lot of things probably came from it, but it sure did hurt at the time and we had to pay some high powered lawyers to defend us. But if there was ever a teacher-superintendent, I was.”

Consolidation

When Hamilton became superintendent, approximately 10 high schools existed in Oconee County. Today, there are four — with all of the consolidations occurring while he was in office.

Hamilton said two of the high schools — Fair Play and Cleveland — were closed when their accreditation was removed and Blue Ridge High was closed due to integration.

Eventually, Salem High School and Keowee High School would also permanently shut their doors during the 1960s and the issue would become dormant until the early 1980s. That was when discussion began about the need to combine Westminster High School with Oakway High School.

Although Hamilton had already retired when West-Oak High School opened its doors in the fall of 1983, he said the wheels had already been put in motion before he left office.

“We bought land to build West-Oak High School and another parcel to build West-Oak Middle School,” Hamilton said.

While West-Oak High School was eventually built at 130 Warrior Lane — on property purchased by the school board — that wasn’t the case for West-Oak Middle. In 2005, the Oconee County School Board voted to construct West-Oak Middle School at 501 Westminster Highway — the site of Westminster Middle School — thereby angering many Oakway area residents who felt it should have been built next to West-Oak High.

Although the board’s decision was an unpopular one, West-Oak Middle School’s construction proceeded as planned and, in August of 2007, the school officially opened its doors. Hamilton said he believes the board’s decision has proven to be the correct one.

“After seeing the congestion and everything that has occurred by having Walhalla Middle School and Walhalla High School together, that might have been a big mistake to put West-Oak Middle School and West-Oak High School together,” he said.

Retirement and back

In 1981, Hamilton decided to retire as superintendent following 18 years on the job. Though only 53 at the time, he said the job had begun to take its toll on him from a physical and an emotional standpoint.

“Six months after I retired, the doctor took me off one of my blood pressure pills,” Hamilton said.

Several months prior to his retirement, Hamilton entered the ministry by answering the call to become pastor of the High Falls Church of God. He spent the next two-and-a-half years there, calling it “a good experience” and one that “was not that stressful.”

But as would be the case following his initial retirement, Hamilton was unable to resist the urge to return to public education. He taught math for half a semester at North Central High School in Kershaw County, a location where, ironically, current Oconee County District Superintendent Mike Lucas and some of his family members were born.

“I knew the superintendent and he had been left in a bind when the math teacher walked out two days after school started,” Hamilton said. “So I went there and rented a house from one of the district employees through the week and came home on weekends throughout the first semester. Then I came home at Christmas to stay.”

But Hamilton learned through that experience that he wanted to get back into teaching, albeit a little closer to home. In 1983, he accepted a teaching position at Hart County High School and served in that capacity for two years before being promoted to assistant principal in charge of building and grounds. He would remain in that capacity at the school for the next eight years.

Returning to the board

While serving at Hart County High School, Hamilton, after receiving permission from school officials, ran for and was elected to the Oconee County School Board. He would serve in that capacity for the next 12 years before the board — which by then was nine members — was reduced to its current five members.

Ironically, Hamilton served alongside James DuPre — the man who succeeded him as superintendent and who also was later elected to the school board. The experience is one Hamilton found extremely rewarding.

“The only difference (in being a board member versus a superintendent) was that you didn’t make decisions immediately — you had to make them as a board,” Hamilton said. “As a superintendent, day-to-day decisions had to be made but the bottom line is what is best for the students and the personnel and school district. If you don’t have that in mind, no matter what position, you’re no good at either of them.”

Part time superintendent

Some six to eight months after the Oconee County School Board evolved from nine members to five, Hamilton agreed to run for election to the part-time superintendent position. The school board had voted in 2000 to transfer all the duties and responsibilities previously enjoyed by the elected superintendent to an appointed superintendent while choosing to retain the elected superintendent position.

While Valerie Truesdale was named the first appointed school superintendent in 2003, Hamilton won the elected position without opposition. Hamilton’s duties included reporting to his office in the school district’s Pine Street headquarters two to three times a week, attending all school board meetings and work sessions and consulting with the appointed superintendent on various issues.

Hamilton said his reasons for seeking the position were simple.

“As far as public education is concerned, I didn’t have an awful lot of trust in our governor,” Hamilton said. “I didn’t want him appointing a superintendent in Oconee County and if I hadn’t run, he would have appointed somebody.

“Another thing was that anybody could have run for the position that may not be all that qualified. They may have had some bone to pick and not been willing to work with anybody. I felt I had put too much into the school district and that was the bottom line.”

As he prepares to step down after six years in the position, Hamilton was asked whether he felt an elected or appointed school superintendent was the best route.

“There are positives and negatives in both, but I think it’s better for the board to choose,” he said. “Whatever goals and objectives the board has may be different than an elected superintendent, but if they appoint a superintendent, they had better be the same.”

Truly Blessed

In looking back over more than five-and-a-half decades in public education, Hamilton feels the Lord has truly blessed him. As superintendent throughout the 1960s, 70s and early 80s, Hamilton had the opportunity to see his brother, Harry, serve as principal of Seneca High School — the largest high school in Oconee County — and establish his own legacy. Hamilton has witnessed two of his children — Chris, who teaches physical education at Westminster Elementary School, and Belinda Ross, who recently retired as a music teacher from Central Elementary School following 28 years in education; follow in his footsteps in education while another son, Tracy, has followed in his dad’s footsteps in the ministry by serving as pastor at Tri County Worship Center in Seneca.

“I told them ‘You’ll never be rich, but you’ll be fulfilled,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton said he has also enjoyed witnessing the progression of the School District of Oconee County to the point that he feels it is one of the better school districts in South Carolina. He also admits that one of the most enjoyable parts of his job as superintendent — up through his final time last weekend — was greeting high school seniors as they received their diploma.

“It is a wonderful feeling to see the accomplishments of our students as they grow from kindergarten to what we witness through our graduation exercises,” Hamilton said. “You can see it in your own children, but to see it in thousands of others makes you feel blessed.”