Oral History Interview with Dennis Shepherd

NATHAN MULLINS: What year did you graduate, Dennis?

SHEPHERD: Nineteen and sixty-five.

N.M.: Okay, today is July thirteenth, nineteen ninety-eight.

SHEPHERD: Right.

N.M.: When you attended Hindman High School did you stay on campus at the Hindman Settlement School?

SHEPHERD: Yes, all four years that I was in Hindman High School, I stayed there.

N.M.: So you started when you were a freshman.

SHEPHERD: I started when I was a freshman, in nineteen sixty-one in the fall. At that time, Nathan, we came, incoming freshmen had to come and work two full weeks, I believe, prior to school starting. It was kind of an initiation process, fitting you into the settlement school, learning your way around and 1:00helping pay for keeping you there.

N.M.: So that kind of paid for your tuition?

SHEPHERD: Right. The tuition was very minimal, seems like it was somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen dollars for a semester. But you worked two hours in the afternoon after school and usually a half a day on Saturday, plus the two weeks prior to school starting.

N.M.: What work did you do the two weeks prior to school starting?

SHEPHERD: A little bit of everything. Maintenance. At that time, we had a garden, several gardens. This mountain back here behind us, was a potato patch. We had gardens over where the ball field is now, in front of the library. We had a garden up the hollow where the cabin, where the crafts cabin is, and a barn where the wood chairs, we made the wooden chairs. We went to the woods to get the trees for them.

N.M.: So you would tend the garden and help with maintenance?

SHEPHERD: Yeah.

N.M.: They'd show you around campus during this time?

SHEPHERD: Right. We learned our way around. 2:00We learned what the rules were and what the regulations were. They were quite different at that time, than they are today for any organization. You know how that is, times change. At that time, Nathan, the settlement school was going through quite a bit of change. We had just completed the May Stone Building. And it was just being finished that summer that I came in sixty-one. Several cousins had helped build it. It was built by the boys basically, with adult supervision. They did most of the construction themselves. So, we moved in. The girls moved in that dorm. We came in about the time that those changes were made.

N.M.: What was the name of the building that you lived in, when you?

SHEPHERD: We lived in Eastover. 3:00N.M.: Eastover, where was that located?

SHEPHERD: That was located where the apartment buildings are on the hill now, above the office building there, in that general area. There was no parking up there, there was only a walking path across the bridge that is still there. The cement bridge was there then. This was the boys' dorm, we had a house mother, Mrs. Fradey, whose son was Superintendent, uh the Principal of the Hindman High School, at that time.

N.M.: What was she like?

SHEPHERD: Mrs. Fradey was a stern house mother, and needed to probably to be more stern than she was, with a bunch of boys like we were. But she was a real good person, and really cared about the boys. She insisted that we study at night. We had a study hall from, I believe, from seven to eight on school nights. And we were expected to do our homework and study and be quiet. We 4:00all came downstairs to the general area. And then we had to take showers and get ready to go to bed. And the lights were out probably at nine o'clock at those times. And we had to be quiet, whether we were in bed or not, was a matter of speculation there. But we had to be quiet at least when the lights went out. And we did stay up lots of times, late at night and talk, as long as she couldn't hear us, we got away with it.

N.M.: But you didn't make too much noise.

SHEPHERD: Right.

N.M.: Tell me a little bit more about living arrangements. How many people were in a room?

SHEPHERD: Basically, it was an open.. ..

N.M.: Open area?

SHEPHERD: Open area. There were partitions, but the doors 5:00were no longer on the openings, they were left open. If I remember correctly, there were a couple of rooms on this end, that the seniors worked their way up to, and there were like two guys in each one of those. And the other areas, there may be eight to ten guys in the old Army cot type beds. It was very cold, you had the old water forced radiators, hot water forced. They didn't work all the time, and when they did, they were very noisy. The pipes were clanging all night long. Many of the windows, of course it was not insulated. It was the old type building that just had the cracks between the boards with a strip over them, and no insulation. Windows were single pane and many of those were broken out. So, it was cold. We'd put sheets, we'd tie, tape blankets over the windows to keep the snow out at night.

N.M.: So, in the winter did it get pretty cold?

SHEPHERD: It got real cold in the winter, it certainly did. But 6:00they gave us plenty of blankets. We had .... they were probably donated from Army surplus and things. But we stayed warm that way. It was an adventure. We didn't care. Today we'd probably complain because of the heat and the cooling, but at that time, it really didn't bother us a tremendous lot.

N.M.: Now, did you stay there on the weekends, also?

SHEPHERD: We did when I initially came there in sixty-one, possibly sixty-two. You were required, you didn't go home every weekend. You were required to work Saturdays, a half day Saturdays. You were allowed to go home Thanksgiving, Christmas, and maybe another weekend. Now that eventually changed by the time I was a senior in sixty-five. There was, we were still doing, I think, the half day work on Saturdays, but they gave us more freedom to go home. We could go home almost any weekend. 7:00But that's how we paid for our tuition was to work on the weekends.

N.M.: So after your work was done, then you could go home?

SHEPHERD: After the work was done, we could go home. Families would be there waiting when you got off and they usually had lunch for us on Saturdays. And once you'd finished lunch, you were allowed to go home. And you had to be back at a certain time on Sunday. If we came back, I think we were required to come back in time for Church services on Sunday evening. If we stayed over on the weekend, we were required to go to Church on Sunday morning.

N.M.: Where was the Church?

SHEPHERD: Church was of our choice in town. And all of us ended up choosing the Methodist church, because they got out a little earlier than the Baptist one did. [Laughter] We enjoyed both and we had some excellent ministers back then. But we did end up, most of us going to the Methodist Church, because they usually didn't conduct service as long 8:00as the Baptist did.

N.M.: So, you went to church in town, and you got your choice.

SHEPHERD: Yes, basically then we had the two, we had the choice of Hindman Baptist or the Methodist church, was about it. () Bible Church was up there, but it was a little harder to get to.

N.M.: Well, on Saturday did you have any certain work that you were responsible for?

SHEPHERD: Usually we did have, that would vary. But in general we were assigned, at that time we had Luther Bentley, who was the maintenance supervisor and Roy Noble, who did a lot of the grounds work and then Lee Thomas, who was in charge of the workshop, who did the chairs. So we may be assigned to one of those three and of course, occasionally that would vary for different reasons. But basically I was assigned to Luther Bentley 9:00and he did the maintenance. We did electrical work, under his supervision, whatever was needed. Which was minor at that time, electrical work was.

N.M.: Yeah.

SHEPHERD: We did those type of things. Some of the guys worked specifically in the chair shop and those type things in the old barn over there, about where the pitcher's mound is now in the ball field. We did a lot of, we did a variety of things. There was always some need, you know. The grass had to be cut, clean up details, repairs on the buildings, and whatever the maintenance crew needed us to do.

N.M.: So, during the school week, you didn't work?

SHEPHERD: Yes, we worked in the evenings.

N.M.: You worked in the evenings.

SHEPHERD: We worked in the afternoons ....

N.M.: Also SHEPHERD: ... when we got, we had a two hour work session, prior to dinner, each evening.

N.M.: Each evening.

SHEPHERD: The incoming freshmen girls were responsible for doing 10:00the laundry. They ran the laundromat. They did all the beds and they did your personal clothing too. I remember very well, they always starched the boys underwear, for a trick. So you were very lucky if you didn't get your underwear back that wasn't starched stiff, if they didn't get caught doing it. [Laughter] They were responsible for cleaning the buildings. They came to the boys' dorm. These were probably the older girls. They did the cleaning, straightening up, sweeping, those types of things. Made the beds and again there, they would short change your sheet. They would take one sheet and fold it back up, so that when you jumped into bed you couldn't get in the bed. Those type things.

N.M.: Yeah, little things.

SHEPHERD: But it was a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. We raised a lot of potatoes. There was a small log structure, where the little dam is now, the pool and your office building.

There was a small cabin there, that was a potato house, a coolant shed. And 11:00we stored huge amounts of potatoes in there that usually, probably carried us through the winter. We dug them back on the mountain. We brought them off by wheelbarrow and sacks. How many, I don't remember, a tremendous lot. We always had a contest. Two guys would pair up and see who could dig the most potatoes. That was Luther's trick and Roy's trick of getting us to work a little harder, you know.

N.M.: Work longer.

SHEPHERD: They'd have some reward for us. They couldn't feed us, you know, a bunch of hungry, big kids, big, young men. They couldn't feed us enough anyway. So usually they'd promise ice cream or something.

N.M.: So did you all raise a lot of the food that you ate?

SHEPHERD: We did. We raised a lot. And then they slowly got away from that. There was a garden in this area, where this building is located. The girls' dorm was sitting about where the pool is.

N.M.: So there was a garden here, where the Human Services Center? 12:00SHEPHERD: Right. This was a bottom out to town. Of course, there wasn't a bridge down there then. But we grew quite a bit of garden there. And then by the time I was a senior, we probably weren't raising any garden or very little, at that time. They had just gone to purchasing most of the food supplies.

N.M.: What kind of rules were you expected to follow?

SHEPHERD: We were, they were strict rules, but not overly strict. We had quite a bit of freedom when we look back at it. Of course, at the time, we didn't think we did. We thought we were just terribly punished, you know, at the time. But we were expected to be in our dorms at a certain time. The men could, the young boys could go to town and Joe's Cafe over there. We could go over there at night, or certain nights. The girls were not allowed to.

N.M.: Girls weren't?

SHEPHERD: Without supervision. 13:00They were allowed to go one night a week, I think maybe with supervision or something.

N.M.: So the boys could go.

SHEPHERD: But the boys could go. And we, I believe every night.

N.M.: Why was that? Were they afraid ....

SHEPHERD: Well, they were totally responsible for us and they had taken this responsibility of the parents and they, at that time, girls, you don't see like it was at that time. Then girls didn't have the freedom that boys had. They were expected to behave differently and they were expected .... They were just treated differently. And we had the freedom to go over there.

N.M.: So, it wasn't out of fear that, just because ....

SHEPHERD: It was basically taking the role of parents. Parents didn't allow girls to go out at night.

N.M.: Okay.

SHEPHERD: Like today, girls have the freedom that boys have, which is the way it should be. But at that time, 14:00girls were not allowed to just be out without a chaperone or without someone else with them. But the boys were, and we'd go to town and stay at Joe's until we had to be back. We had to be at our dorms at a certain time. We had to do our work. We had to keep our grades up. They monitored our report cards from the settlement, from the high school. We had to, you weren't thrown out with bad grades, but you were encouraged to improve them and work on them.

N.M.: So, if you got bad .... Let's say you received poor grades, would there be any kind of punishment, like extra work or maybe more study hall?

SHEPHERD: No, but Mr. McClain, who was the Director at that time, would meet with you. He would ....

N.M.: He would sit you down and tell you ...

SHEPHERD: Yeah. You need to really work here for your future. Of course, none of us realize our future lots of times, until we're in the future. But there wasn't any kind of punishment for that. But we were encouraged, and our dorm directors kept us on line and on task and so forth. We read a lot. I think that was my big interest. Because you couldn't 15:00do other things, that are available now. You didn't have .... we had a T.V. in May Stone Building, that we could occasionally watch at night.

N.M.: You did have T.V. in the May Stone Building?

SHEPHERD: Yeah, boys and girls would meet there and have those activities. And it was available if we missed a snow day. You know, if school was called off. They had some activities that we could do, once we got our work in. I think originally we worked a half a day if there was no school, like it was Saturday. Then they cut that down, I think to we just did our two hours of normal work. But we had a lot of other activities. I know Mr. Singleton, Vesper Singleton was Principal at the later half of my stay there. And he would let us fellows have a key to the gym. The old Hindman High School gym is still up there. So we could go in when we got our work done and play ball for an afternoon. And we thought we were elected, you know. But 16:00usually he got us back some way. He'd call us when he had a truckload of blocks that needed to be unloaded. [Laughing] And volunteer us to unload them. Or lumber or something. But he was really good to us.

N.M.: So you had, you kind of paid for that privilege.

SHEPHERD: Right, we did, in some way. With Mr. Singleton, you always paid for whatever. But he was really good, a good, fine fellow, excellent school man. But we did, we had a lot of other activities. At night we did the folk dancing, certain nights of the week we were taught folk dancing. We had a folk dancing group that traveled the country. We had gone to Washington, D.C. and to Maine, down the east coast once.

N.M.: Were you, were you involved in it?

SHEPHERD: Yes. We did, we had a real good folk dance group.

N.M.: Now, who was in charge of that?

SHEPHERD: Mr. McClain, Raymond McClain.

N.M.: And he would take you all ...

SHEPHERD: He would take us. We were on T.V. a time or two. 17:00N.M.: On local stations?

SHEPHERD: No, this would, we were, the Huntington station, at that time that was probably about as close as we had to anyone. That's one everybody got in the air with their old mountain top antennas.

N.M.: Was Huntington?

SHEPHERD: Uh huh. We went to Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida, in the early sixties. This was a National Folk Dance Tour or something they held annually then. We performed on the stage there with these people.

N.M.: Tell me about the trip itself SHEPHERD: Well, he and his wife .... we had I think, two vans. We had a Volkswagen van and I'm not sure what the other one was. But I do remember on the way back that we had a breakdown in the Smokey Mountains, which was typical then with an automobile, you know. But of course, all the guys volunteered to stay and wait on the van to be fixed. I think it was the Volkswagen van, something 18:00went wrong with it. And so we stayed in the Smokeys somewhere. I don't remember any details. But the tow truck guy towed us across that mountain down there, when we were on the way back. And the others came along with Mrs. McClain and we stayed with Mr. McClain until it was fixed. We really enjoyed these trips, of course, we were getting out of school. I mean that was....

N.M.: Oh, you'd get out of school for these?

SHEPHERD: Yes. They would allow him to do this. Sometimes we would be gone a week. Probably growing up in this rural area, this isolated area, that probably did us more good than a week of school anyway, getting to see these things. We stayed in people's homes. We visited, two people usually to a home. They would have that worked out when we got there. They would have us assigned and we'd stay. And we met all these people and lived in their homes that time that we were there. 19:00N.M.: Now did this give you a chance to go to a lot of places you normally wouldn't have been able to get to at that time?

SHEPHERD: Oh, absolutely. We would not have gone, very few of us would have, had opportunities to have done that. We went to Detroit. And the year after I left, they went out west and stayed about a week. The Folk Dance Annual Festival, whatever, I don't remember exactly what it was called then. But they met out there somewhere in Arizona. But I remember my younger brother went on that trip. They had a great time, camped in the desert, did some things. We had really had a lot of opportunities to do several things. The DAR [Daughters of the American Revolution], of course, they're still a big part of the settlement school.

N.M.: They support us.

SHEPHERD: Right. We did, we went to Washington, D.C. once to do a folk dance performance for them.

N.M.: For their big annual convention they have there every year, yeah.

SHEPHERD: Then drove back down the east coast and spent a day or two just doing that and coming back.

N.M.: So, you really got to see a lot of places.

SHEPHERD: Yeah. A lot of places, Nathan, that we would never have the opportunity to have seen without 20:00 that.

N.M.: So that was... .I bet everybody really enjoyed that.

SHEPHERD: We looked forward to it. We loved it.

N.M.: About how many people would be in the dance group?

SHEPHERD: Somewhere in the neighborhood of probably six or eight boys and six or eight girls. I think it may have been eight. So, you're talking about roughly about fifteen or sixteen students and then the adults that went along. We had a lot of wonderful trips and a lot of real good times. Enjoyed it, sure did. But those were opportunities we had other than just the classroom. And we had opportunities to go to all the home 21:00basketball games, unless you were being disciplined for some reason. The away games, occasionally the school would run a school bus and we were allowed to go to those, if you could afford to go. Which probably at that time about a quarter or fifty cents for a game, you know, or something. Most of us didn't have very much money and if we knew something was coming up, we tried to save our money.

N.M.: Did you ever save your money to go to a big basketball game somewhere?

SHEPHERD: Yeah, if we could go, well we went mostly ....most of them were close by.

N.M.: Close by.

SHEPHERD: Yeah. Most of them were, you know, Breathitt, or somewhere like that. We always enjoyed going to Breathitt, because that was our, traditionally one of our big rivals. Carr Creek was a big rival, at that time. It was a friendly, a nice rival. Hazard was a, kind of one of those teams you hate. Everyone hated Hazard. We didn't want to lose to Hazard.

N.M.: You didn't?

SHEPHERD: They recruited our boys, you know, like Johnny Cox and all these guys that they had over there. He came from Carr Creek. You know how you develop those rivalries.

N.M.: Yeah. And return it.

SHEPHERD: Yeah. Lot 22:00of fun though, we sure did. But we had a lot of opportunities. We had people visit, people that came in. Miss Watts came back a lot then, she had just, you know, Mr. McClain ....

N.M.: She was retired, but she'd still come back and visit?

SHEPHERD: She came back and stayed a lot of time. And of course, you know, we had to really spiff the place up when she was on her way, and be on our best behavior.

N.M.: So you knew when she was coming, because they would tell you.

SHEPHERD: Yeah, we knew it. The Recreation Building, that's what we knew it by, is the one up on the hill, high up there.

N.M.: The Priest Building.

SHEPHERD: Yes. And we could spend, sometimes we might be out of school a week. We had some pretty severe winters back then. And we couldn't get home, most of us, because the roads were pretty bad into the areas. And we could spend days and evenings up there. We had a fireplace and we could play checkers and do different things, or just sit around and talk. So we were, 23:00we had a lot of things. I don't remember us actually being bored. If the weather was fair we had an outside basketball court over there, where the ball field is, in front of the library, that we could go play on. And in the winter, we could use the gym. They always fed us breakfast and lunch and dinner. Then after Mr. Singleton came in, they had what they called a closed lunchroom, which everybody had to eat at the school. So therefore, we ate at the school too, so there wouldn't be any difference. But before that, we always came back to the settlement school for lunch, and then go back to class.

N.M.: So, you would come back and eat at the settlement and the other students would eat at?

SHEPHERD: They could eat at school, or they could go to town.

N.M.: Go to town.

SHEPHERD: Mr. Singleton changed that after Claude Fradey left. He changed that to what they called the closed lunch room. It wasn't very popular, because 24:00everybody liked to go to Joe's for a hamburger, cheeseburger and fries, you know.

N.M.: I bet Joe didn't like it.

SHEPHERD: Joe didn't like it either. [Laughter] He lost out on that money. And I can remember Mr. Singleton going down there and rounding up a few guys, who weren't willing to live by the rules at lunch. He would do that, go bring them back. But they were strict, a lot stricter then. The rules were a lot different, a lot stricter, but..

N.M.: Did they have to be though?

SHEPHERD: Well, at that time probably, that was just the way people did things, even your parents expected you to behave in a certain way. No one had a car. If someone had a car at school it was some of the local fellas, whose families were a little better off, you know. Of course they were pretty popular if they had a car. But now I think every kid's got two cars, just about. So that's the biggest 25:00difference. But we had a lot of advantages that the other kids didn't have, that just rode the bus, or were able to get to school otherwise. We were from the entire county, we covered Beaver, Dry Creek in particular, all the Cooks from over there, they were good friends of mine. The boys from up in there, the Littles.

N.M.: Did you stay at the settlement school, simply because you couldn't get to school?

SHEPHERD: Right, right.

N.M.: Was that because they didn't run buses out that far?

SHEPHERD: They didn't run buses out. I grew up in Decoy. And at that time, the only road in there, was over, you had to go through five counties to get to there. You went through, you went into Floyd County, Magoffin County, Breathitt County and back into Knott County to get to Decoy, forty-eight miles, and across some pretty rough mountains. But now it's about eighteen miles, so there's a big difference, you know.

N.M.: So, you had to make a circle and come around.

SHEPHERD: Yes, you did. Some of the kids that lived over there. Of course, the Breathitt-Knott line went right through the grade school there at Decoy. The kids, some of them lived on the Breathitt County side. And some of those kids 26:00went to Jackson, went to high school in Breathitt County, and lived with relatives, or made some other arrangement. But most of us came here to the settlement school. I don't remember exact numbers, but it seems like there was a total of anywhere from eighty to a hundred or more kids at the time I was there, you know, boys and girls.

N.M.: That were staying on campus?

SHEPHERD: Yeah, at least that. And you know, like in any situation, some of your freshmen would get homesick and they couldn't make it. They'd go home. They usually ended up, some of them probably didn't go on to school, but most of them probably ended up making other arrangements. Going to another school or living with a relative or something.

N.M.: When you were here, was, did all the people that were boarding, all the students boarding, were they high school students?

SHEPHERD: Yes, at that time, they were.

N.M.: There were no grade school students? 27:00SHEPHERD: I don't, there were not, as a rule there were not. Seems like I remember an exception for some reason, one time maybe, sickness or parents were lost or something. I'm not sure, but generally it was high school. They used to keep both. But when I was there, it was all high school. The settlement, you see it as it is now, it was an entirely different look then. No bridges to drive over, you had to drive through the creek, which generally meant you weren't coming over too many times. You know, in the winter or whenever on that. [Laughter -Mullins] The buildings, Uncle Sol's cabin, we moved that, when I was there. We boys moved that cabin.

N.M.: You were part of moving that.

SHEPHERD: Uh huh, we moved it, we took it, dismantled it. It was over in the bottom, almost down by the creek, down this way.

N.M.: In the bottom, the library?

SHEPHERD: In front of the library, but more down this way. And we took it apart. It was getting flooded 28:00all the time. Moved it over here. Had to go cut trees and make new shingles for it. We did those things with the Smith Branch property that the school has over there. And we cut the trees and made the shingles for it, wooden shingles.

N.M.: Now did you have to .... how did you haul it over there?

SHEPHERD: We used a truck, a pick-up truck, and we just moved what we could at a time.

N.M.: Dismantled the logs and brought them over?

SHEPHERD: Dismantled and brought them a few at a time. We numbered them and redid the thing over there. And of course, you know, had to make some improvements on it. So, I think some of them were probably rotting and we replaced a few maybe. There was also the Industrial Arts Building was there at that time. The old log structure, there were two buildings there. This side of the library there's a chimney, I believe is still standing. There was a building there, that was their, they kept their looms 29:00there. A lot of the girls worked with the looms, they made, manufactured cloth in there. In front of that was another structure that was used, and I'm not sure what that .... absolutely what that one was used for at that time. Maybe it was part of the looms too, or something. But next to that, almost in front of where the library is, was the Industrial Arts Building. The high school used it. I took Industrial Arts there, under Aubrey Collins. He was teaching it at that time.

N.M.: What would you do in that class?

SHEPHERD: Learn a trade. Everybody was required. The girls took Home Ee and we took Industrial Arts. Of course, later, you never heard o fa guy taking Home Ee or a girl taking Industrial Arts, but that started to change, which it should. But we learned, we'd make a bookcase, construct things. It was a basic, very basic course. It didn't have the things we have today.

N.M.: Did you get to keep the work that you did there?

SHEPHERD: Yes, 30:00you were allowed to keep it. Some of them, I wasn't a great wood worker, but some of the guys were, you know, did real good work. Some of the guys had a lot of talent.

N.M.: I understand some people made beds and all kinds of things and they still have them.

SHEPHERD: Yes. Some of the guys were really good. They made some very nice things. I basically nailed some boards together and called it a bookcase.

N.M.: Just something to get by?

SHEPHERD: Yeah, that was my talent and ability then.

N.M.: That would have been me. END OF TAPE 20 A28, DENNIS SHEPHERD, SIDE A BEGINNING OF TAPE 20 A28 , DENNIS SHEPHERD, SIDE B SHEPHERD: .... Sharp, but understood young people. He was, he would give you ever chance in the world to do the right thing. We really liked him a lot. I remember one instance, we, 31:00the boys we'd sneak out. We had gotten some big nails in a post on the back of the porch roof And we would sneak out at night after we were supposed to be in bed, and go to town.

N.M.: Yeah.

SHEPHERD: And we did one night. We didn't do that very often, because we were afraid of getting caught. But we did one night and went to Joe's late, thought we'd pulled it off. And at breakfast the next day, a couple of us were eating at his table. And we were all just sitting around eating breakfast and he says, he looked over at one of us and said, "Did you guys have a good trip to town last night?" [Laughter] So you never got anything on him, you know. But that was as far as it went. But that was his way of saying, don't do it anymore.

N.M.: But he didn't punish you.

SHEPHERD: He didn't come down on us heavy, but he would have, 32:00had we openly done it again.

N.M.: Done it again.

SHEPHERD: He just had a real knack for understanding people and handling of....

N.M.: He'd do it discreetly.

SHEPHERD: Yeah.

N.M.: He wouldn't tell everybody.

SHEPHERD: Mr. McClain would get mad and rant and rave, you know, and get upset with you and carry on, and ....

N.M.: He'd just come to you ...

SHEPHERD: He'd just do it in a quiet way and you respected him more. And then you felt guilty, well, I shouldn't have done that.

N.M.: So, he's one of those people that made you, he got you to obey by making you feel guilty for ...

SHEPHERD: Yeah, sure. He did, he just had a way with him. He could, if you were having problems or something, he's the type that could put his arm around your shoulder and make you feel less a problem.

N.M.: So, if you had a problem, you could go and talk to him?

SHEPHERD: Anytime, he or Helen, either one. They were just real fine people. They couldn't have found a better couple to have worked with the school in that situation. They couldn't have. And then a lot of the staff, the ladies were getting older at that time, you know. And some of them were retiring. Mrs. Beeman, we called her the Doc, she was the nurse. In the building 33:00here in the hollow there, was the infirmary.

N.M.: The Stuckey Building.

SHEPHERD: The Stuckey Building. That was the infirmary. You hated that place. Because if you got sick. ..

N.M.: You had to stay up there?

SHEPHERD: Yes. You stayed there, keep you away from everybody else. And she, I always remember, and she's probably not even living now, I'm sure. I don't think she is. But she played the piano, classical music on the piano out in the hallway. And she would demand that you take an afternoon nap after lunch, if you were up there in the infirmary. And then she'd sit out there and bang on that piano all afternoon. [Laughter] But we, I spent two weeks there once with the flu. Didn't even know I was there one week. We had a home ball game with Hazard, the second week and I wanted out. I was feeling better. But she was the law when it came to that. And a guy slipped me out the back window that night. I went to the ball game, never did get caught. But today 34:00I believe that she knew it. I think she just knew it. She was another one that knew everything that went on. You just didn't, she was very sharp.

N.M.: By that time, she wouldn't have ...

SHEPHERD: Yeah, she probably just really didn't care. She couldn't officially let me go, but..

N.M.: She wasn't going to ...

SHEPHERD: But we did those types of things. And that wasn't your favorite place to be.

N.M.: I guess it got pretty lonely up there.

SHEPHERD: Yeah, it did. There's lots of times, you might be the only person up there, for a week, nobody around. She always made sure you got all your homework. They didn't fail to get that to you. Then Mrs. White played the piano. And I don't know, I guess she taught music. Mrs. White taught music. An older lady that retired, probably when I was there, or shortly after I left. She taught music in the schools, I'm sure. Real strict, all these people were. They were from the old school, you know, and had been there for years and years. Then we had the 35:00director's house that burned. It was sitting here over about where Mrs. Watts is buried. That burned shortly after, let's see, shortly after I came back here, I believe, to work. Something that housed the old phone system, the old crank phone. We lost all of that. The controls, and then they modernized it and put in a new phone. We even had, they even killed their own beef. They killed a large ....

N.M.: Where did they have the cattle at?

SHEPHERD: They usually bought it, now they used to keep some cows, I think, in that hollow over there, where the Creative Arts Center is, 36:00the Craft Center. But they weren't keeping them when I was here. But I think they bought a beef and then killed it.

N.M.: From locally, someone?

SHEPHERD: Probably, I don't remember. I just remember that we, they usually slaughtered it over there at the barn, and took it somewhere for packaging. I don't remember where. We had different, we always had a large Christmas play. What they called a Mummer's play. Everybody, during the four years almost everybody got involved in that. Had a part in it sometime during your four years. And they had a big Christmas dinner for everyone. And then you were home for whatever period of time the school was out at that time. We had sleighs that we could ride in the wintertime. The road came down from the infirmary. Of course, we always tried to go in the creek with it, the boys would. We'd pack that down until it would just be a sheet of ice. And then we'd have to help all these ladies, 37:00you know Mrs. White and Mrs. Beeman, down the hill to dinner then every night. Because they couldn't walk on it. We had a real good time. They took us on camping trips, down at Robinson Forest area. They used to take us down there. We'd go up in the Little Buckhorn they called it, camp out on the weekends. The guys would.

N.M.: So they would have activities sometimes on the weekends for you?

SHEPHERD: Yes, they would do that. And then lots of times he would meet like Lionel and Frankie that taught at Decoy. They taught me over there. They would bring some of their older kids, the eighth graders, and meet us over there. And we'd have a combined camping trip, in that area. That's probably, well that's basically about all I can think of as far as recreation, things like that.

N.M.: Did any other members of your family attend Hindman High School? 38:00SHEPHERD: Yes.

N.M.: Did they also stay in the settlement school?

SHEPHERD: They all did. I have two sisters and two other brothers that stayed at the settlement school.

N.M.: Were you the oldest?

SHEPHERD: No, I'm in the middle. My two brothers are younger and my sisters were older. So I suffered a little.

N.M.: So they had stayed here, before you came.

SHEPHERD: Yeah, my sister was here. She was a senior when I was a freshman. Then there was an older one, that was already gone. And then my younger brothers came later. One of them was here part of the last year.

N.M.: So you already knew somewhat of what to expect when you were coming.

SHEPHERD: Yes, we visited. We were able to come. Sometimes the school would come as a group, the eighth graders. They would bring them to functions, to folk dances. And at that time, there were more of these schools than there are now, of course, Pine Mountain and some of the others. And folk dancing was the big thing. They 39:00did a lot of pot luck dinners. And we would visit Pine Mountain, the next one might be here, they had some at Jackson, some at Annville. Other places I can't think of right off, Hazard maybe. But folk dancing was one of the big entertainment things of that area. And that was our chance to get out and go to, have those pot luck dinners. Everyone would take some food. The settlement would take some and then all the different groups coming in and they would have folk dancing until nine or ten o'clock at night. And then we came home. Had a meal and then folk danced. And those were always nice. You met all these other people that way. The Rogers, that's where I met the Rogers family, was from the Pine Mountain School, Peter Rogers and his family. His dad was director there, I think, at that time. 40:00N.M.: Let's talk about the school a little now. Who were some of your favorite teachers that you had later in high school over there?

SHEPHERD: Miss Pratt, Bevie Pratt.

N.M.: What did she teach?

SHEPHERD: She taught English. Mrs. Stewart came in the middle of the year, I had Mrs. Stewart. She's retired now too, Ray Stewart's wife. She replaced a teacher that died. She and her husband were in a car wreck, crashed with a train and then she was killed. And he died a little bit later, I think. That was Mrs. Hall. Pearl Combs' wife, Betty, she also taught English. She was one of my favorite teachers. Jack Cornett from the bank. I was in Jack Cornett's class, when President Kennedy was killed, 41:00typing class. You always remember those things, you know, where you were at the time.

N.M.: Yeah.

SHEPHERD: Let's see if I can think. Pearl Combs. Pearl was one of my favorite teachers. I never played ball, because we didn't have any place to play in Decoy. We'd just shoot around on the outside of the goal. But he always tried to get me to go out for basketball. I was one of the bigger fellows in a small school. I had him in class. And he used to come in and tell me he was going to fail me if I wouldn't go out for basketball. Of course, he was kidding.

N.M.: You didn't want to play?

SHEPHERD: No, I was embarrassed to, because I had not had any background in it, or any training.

N.M.: Everybody else had always played?

SHEPHERD: Yeah. These guys all played locally here. Most of the fellows had organized grade school teams.

N.M.: Yeah, and they would pretty good too, weren't they?

SHEPHERD: Yeah, we had some dandy ball players. We had some real good players. Danny Terry was a good ball player. He graduated a year later than I did. Barry ( ) some 42:00of these fellows. Strody up at IGA, or it's not the IGA now. But those were some of my favorite teachers.

N.M.: What was so special about them that made you like them?

SHEPHERD: They were absolutely sincere in what they were doing. That Bill Tripplet and his brother Gene. You probably don't know Gene, he's in Ohio teaching. But these people, that were not there for any other reason, other than to educate. They were totally committed. They did not need direction. They didn't need a principal that stood over them or hounded them to do a better job. They were just outstanding teachers. If you mentioned that you went to Hindman High School, that rang a bell, wherever you went. That got doors opened that, I don't know that we have that reaction today. 43:00And times change, you know.

N.M.: Hindman High School was well respected at that time.

SHEPHERD: Very well respected, very well respected. These people were just absolutely committed to doing a good job, they sure were, and basically good people. They were just good community leaders. And strong, most of them in their church, family men and family women. They were good people. That was basically it. I had teachers at the time that I liked because they were easier, but later on you begin to realize they weren't, you know, that wasn't your best teacher.

N.M.: Yeah. You were saying Miss Watts would come and visit every once in a while. 44:00Did you ever get to meet her and talk to her?

SHEPHERD: Oh yes, a lot.

N.M.: What was your impression of her?

SHEPHERD: We were in awe of her. We were a little afraid of her. She was just very kind, but she had this personality that was, she was kind of stern.

N.M.: She demanded respect?

SHEPHERD: She demanded respect just by who she had been and what she stood for. But, you know, she was a very kind person, a very kind person. It was just that, you know, when you're young and at that time, more so I think than today, Nathan, we, younger people respected an older person just out of respect. We enjoyed her visit. We dreaded it, because we had to be on our best behavior. We tried not to get into too much trouble while she was around. Simply because, I guess, Mr. McClain didn't want her, he had taken over for her. And I guess he didn't want to show that he had lost control.

N.M.: He'd have been pretty strict, harsh on you too, if you'd messed up while she was around. 45:00SHEPHERD: Yes. And then I worked and lived there, worked there, when I first came back from college for a while. And I knew her real well then at the settlement school. I taught a federal program that were dropouts in four counties, Letcher, Leslie, Perry and Knott. I was there about four years and worked with that for the settlement school. So I knew her real well then. She wanted me to stay on. When I had to take other .... That job ended and I had to get other employment. She wanted me to stay on in some capacity, but there just wasn't anything there. I remember when Mike was hired, when your dad was hired. I had some of the older people ask me about looking into being the director. And Mike was the best fit for it, because I wanted to see it stay as it had been. That was just sentimental things. And I couldn't see a change. Mike 46:00didn't have that attachment and sentiment. And he just did a, you know, he was right for the right time and a new direction. Because I could see it going down, and my thought was, well I don't want to be a part of it going down, because I see there's no need for it as housing for students. I still wanted to see it be there. So, I didn't have any interest in being the director.

N.M.: I guess, the housing for students ended some time in the seventies, didn't it?

SHEPHERD: Yes, I think there were still some when Mike was there I believe. When he took over, probably a small amount.

N.M.: Actually, one lived with us for a while. [Laughing] SHEPHERD: Is that right?

N.M.: He was the last one.

SHEPHERD: The last one you had.

N.M .: And he ended up staying, he ended up living at our house for a while.

SHEPHERD: But it's made tremendous strides I mean, in a role that was needed 47:00right now. It's doing some really great things.

N.M.: Tell me a little bit about graduation, your graduation ceremony. What was that like?

SHEPHERD: Probably not a lot different than it is today. Larger numbers of course today, but we simply...We had the Baccalaureate services on a Sunday, then we had the graduation. I'm not sure, but I don't believe you had as much public and parent participation in the actual graduation ceremonies, as you have today. And that's simply, probably because they couldn't get there. You know, the bad roads and the distances and the lack of transportation.

N.M.: Were your parents able to make it?

SHEPHERD: My mother, I don't believe made it, simply didn't have a way of getting 48:00there. My dad had died when I was real young, so he wouldn't have been there. I don't recall that she made it. Transportation was just not.. ..

N.M.: Was terrible.

SHEPHERD: Yeah. There just wasn't any. One person in the community may have an automobile.

N.M.: And then if they had an automobile, the roads were...

SHEPHERD: Right.

N.M.: Very bad, very bad. And few and far between.

SHEPHERD: Right. But I remember the ceremony and I remember it was a big thing. And it was impressive. But not a lot different than it is today, other than just a little bit of style and the different dress. We were a lot more conservative. I know kids today wear their shorts and their tennis shoes, you know, under their robes. And that's, there's nothing wrong with that. Us older people, sometimes we like to frown on those things, say well, traditionally you should do this or that. That doesn't have a thing in the world to do with it. 49:00It really doesn't, we have to, when you look at it realistically. But we were more conservative. We wouldn't have been allowed to do that. We would have just been told, you're not going to graduate, you go get dressed correctly or forget it. But it was not a lot different than it is today.

N.M.: Did you see a lot of changes in the school, in the Hindman Settlement School from your freshman to your senior year?

SHEPHERD: Considerable change. Not a tremendous lot. See the old building that was there, you may have seen photographs of the old building that was there, where May Stone is now. It was a dark, wooden structure, you know, with outside stairs, I think, going up to the second level. I don't remember very much about it, because it was gone when I got here. But I had visited and seen it. A lot more open campus, different requirements.

N.M.: Some of the buildings changed?

SHEPHERD: The buildings changed tremendously, we started taking them out. We built the new library and taking out the old buildings.

N.M.: I guess a lot of the buildings were basically run down a lot of the times. 50:00They were old.

SHEPHERD: They were, they were very old. The Industrial Arts building was very old and run down, and the floors were giving. And the structure itself was settling and getting flooded where they were down there in that area.

N.M.: Tell me a little bit about the impact of the settlement. What it's had on your life.

SHEPHERD: I don't know Nathan, that I can tell you how much of an impact. It's just, it was tremendous. It was like day and night difference. Without that it would have been really hard to have gotten a high school education and to have gone on to college, period. Education was stressed by the school, by every employee at the school, from the janitors, from whatever. You were encouraged. You were pushed and you were 51:00given direction. And told you really need to go on to college and do these other things. It opened up, when you grew up then, you know, out of the rural areas, you were of course limited to contact with a lot of the rest of the world you were not familiar with. But through the settlement school we made contacts, started seeing what the rest of the world was. Especially the trips for folk dancing purposes and whatever other reason. And then just the variety of the people that you met. You met all of the people in the county. They had an impact on your life. You made friends that were friends for life. You just learned an entirely different world than what you'd grown up in.

N.M.: How about the impact of the settlement on this area?

SHEPHERD: Again, 52:00without it, we probably wouldn't be anywhere near where we are. No school system, they were the original school. And they did such a job of setting up a school, that when the county did officially take it over and manage it, that's one of the reasons, I believe that Knott County was always historically known as an education county. It had basically been started by the settlement school, and that carried over for many, many years, into the public system. It was expected and that was what they were used to.

N.M.: They were still involved with the public schools though, weren't they?

SHEPHERD: Oh yes. They were involved. They sent out staff as much as they probably do today, you know, on that. They sent out teachers that the school system could not have afforded using, arts. Naomi Powell, I think, originally came here probably because 53:00of the settlement school. These people did things that our grade schools would not have been able to have done, without that help.

N.M.: Well, is there anything that I have not asked you about that you feel is important or maybe some story or special memory about the settlement school that you'd like to share, that comes to mind?

SHEPHERD: Well, it seems like we've covered pretty much everything Nathan. It was just, it was like it was a large, extended family. You felt close to most everyone. Of course, you were closer to some people than others. But it just generated a feeling that we were all one group, one family. And we stuck together, for whatever reasons. Basically, we had a lot of good students come from 54:00that group, people that have gone on. I have a friend that is a professor at Eastern [Kentucky University], that stayed at the settlement school with me, has his doctorate. Those type of things, I think it just gave a lot of those people .... you see it and they come back yet today. Mike can name them better than I can, because he is in contact with them. And they're very successful. And I think it stems from what they got there. Not just the settlement students, but also those people that went to the old Hindman High School. Successful people and their children are going on to be more successful than they were.

N.M.: Appreciate it.

END OF INTERVIEW