Owen County Merges 32 One-Room Schools

Owenton, April 10. – One-room schools in Owen County have been reduced from forty-eight to sixteen for the year 1937-38.  This county Board of Education program was accelerated during the year by the merger of two independent districts, New Liberty-Wheatley and Sparta, with the county system.  These districts were logical school centers and made possible elimination of several one-teacher county schools.   A school building program, financed by a private holding company, has just been completed.  A new eight-room building with a combined auditorium and gymnasium has just been completed at Bethany and will serve as county high school beginning in September.  Three classrooms and a combined auditorium and gymnasium have been added to the New Liberty High School building.  Three four-room buildings for the elementary grades have been completed.  This makes a total of nine elementary centers in the county where both elementary grade and high school children are centralized and the high school children transported to a county high school or to the Owenton City School.   Thirteen busses are used to provide transportation for all children in the consolidated areas and for all high school students.      

by J. O. Webster, Superintendent of City Schools, in the Louisville Courier Journal, April 11, 1937