Floris Vocational High School under construction, c. 1920. Note the tennis game being played in the front of the old building. Copy of photo in Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.
The Floris Vocational High School was the third to be built in Virginia.[236] It was extended from an existing, two-year high school, founded in 1911, but the property on which it was built had actually been deeded to the school board over forty years earlier. In 1876 George Kenfield deeded about six acres of land to the Frying Pan School Association and the property remained in school use through several owner changes.[237] One- and two-room schools stood on the land until 1911 when a larger building was completed.[238]
The citizens of Floris had worked together to raise money for the vocational school; they also contributed their skills and time to its construction. Under the direction of two (often dissenting) contractors, a Mr. Sheffield and Jack Walker, pupils and parents helped to raise the three-story brick structure, and later to build a smaller agricultural shop a short distance from the main schoolhouse. The school was open to the entire county but the immediate community continued to feel a special interest in it. The Floris Home Demonstration Club served hot lunches in the school for many years and around 1924 they sponsored the hiring of a music teacher at their own expense until the county and state finally gave support to the teacher.[239]
Floris Vocational High School was an immediate success. In 1924 it had 150 pupils, evenly divided between primary and secondary grades, and hailing chiefly from the Herndon area. Students walked or rode horseback to reach their classes; some, such as Virginia Presgraves Harrison from Loudoun County, boarded with local families.[240] The high school offered the standard curriculum courses of English, American and European history, algebra, geography, physics and chemistry. Courses in higher mathematics (plane geometry and trigonometry) were optional as were English history and foreign languages. The school differed from the county's other secondary institutions in the varied agriculturally oriented courses it taught. Boys learned the principles of agronomy, animal husbandry, soil control and veterinary science, and were expected to put the theoretical knowledge into practice with test animals and acreage on their home farms. They also sharpened their skills in agricultural shop courses. Under the guidance of Ford Lucas and, later, Harvey D. Seale, they were taught carpentry, motor repair, blacksmithing, indeed, everything from building chicken coops to "how to put a roof on a barn and keep it from leaking."[241] Classes for the girls also stressed the relationship between theory and practice. The rudiments of nutrition, food preparation, fabric and clothing construction, were carried over into "Hominy Hall," a house owned by William Ellmore, which housed the kitchen and serving areas for domestic science courses. The girls spent several hours a week in this building, gaining proficiency in the work which would probably occupy most of their lives. Like the majority of the students' homes, Hominy Hall had no running water, and baking was done on a large, wood-burning stove.[242] The classes were taught by, among others, May Calhoun and Louisa Glassal. Elizabeth Ellmore, principal of Floris Vocational High School in 1929-1930, noted that because of the school's personal nature the teachers had a fair amount of leeway in the character and depth of the courses they taught—as much, in fact, as their students would allow them.[243] One early teacher found the pupils very apt indeed, with abilities equal to those of the town children she had previously taught. Stated Lulah Ferguson:
So far as the interest was concerned you'd find that maybe those children in Falls Church were a little more interested in affairs in general, a little better informed generally, than these were, but so far as their attitude towards studying or wanting to know, you wouldn't find any difference. These country children were really just as eager or maybe more so than some of the small town....[244]
The championship girl's basketball team of Floris Vocational High School, 1924-1925.
