Hundreds honor legacy of West Charlotte High before bittersweet campus move
Of all the memories Shari Belton carries with her from West Charlotte High School, it’s what she didn’t carry that has had a lasting impact.
Belton was a senior — a proud alum from the class of 1991 — when a junior boy approached her and asked if he could carry her books.
“I’ll never forget that walk from the A building to the trailers,” Belton said. “He was a gentleman. He carried my books every day.”
On Saturday, amid the tents that dotted its historic campus on 2219 Senior Drive, Belton and Damion Graham stood side by side.
“Thirty years later, here we are,” Belton said of Graham, who she married June 28, 2021. “He’s always told me it’s my smile that got him that day he asked to carry my books.”
Hundreds of former and current West Charlotte High students gathered Saturday for a Celebration of Lion Pride Day. The school is one of Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s oldest public schools. It was founded in 1938 on the campus of Northwest School of the Arts and moved to the Senior Drive location in September 1954.
It will close its doors June 8. In the fall, students and staff will move to a new facility that is being built next door.
“I’m sad. I’m going to try not to cry today,” Belton said. “I was hoping for a facelift instead of a new building, and that way we could keep the bones of the school. I feel like we’re taking away everything that is West Charlotte High.”
But Graham, who graduated from the school in 1992, said after more than six decades on Senior Drive: “It’s time.”
Celebrating “DubC”
West Charlotte High, affectionately known as “DubC,” is a special place for the community, said Tay Young, an alum from the class of 1993. Young was on two Lion state championship basketball teams in 1991 and 1992.
“It’s hard because this campus is all I know,” Young said. “My brother went here. My father went here. But it also needs some upgrading. It’s long overdue.”
Jeanette Davis Price, of the class of 1966 and a member of the West Charlotte High School National Alumni Association, said she’s happy to see that the school will have a new building. She said a new facility will never take away the memories.
“I’ll never forget the teachers who cared about their students and encouraged you to set goals and reach them,” Price said. “The teachers at West Charlotte High saw in you what you didn’t see.”
Principal Donevin Hoskins said earlier this week of planning a celebration, “We owed it to the community to do something of adequate magnitude to honor the legacy of West Charlotte High.”
An important piece of Charlotte’s history
While alumni walked the campus Saturday and met up with old friends, 85-year-old Johnny Johnson sat in a chair holding two framed mementos from his football-playing days. His letterman jacket was at his feet.
Johnson, or “The Hammer” as he was nicknamed because of his prowess on the field, was on the Lions team that won the school’s first state football championship in 1954 — the year West Charlotte High moved to its current campus on Senior Drive.
“I’m proud of the fact we’re moving to a new building because it’s needed,” Johnson said. “I’m proud for the city, too.”
The existing campus is composed of multiple buildings, which are being replaced with one school building. The current brick buildings will be torn down, school officials said, and will be replaced with parking lots and athletic fields.
Sidney Hollingsworth, a 16-year-old sophomore at West Charlotte High, walked its campus Saturday wearing her Miss Sophomore sash from homecoming.
“I like this campus, especially when it’s warm outside,” Hollingsworth said. “The history that it has is special — it’s one of the most important Black high schools in Charlotte.”
It’s bittersweet
The new school will have 100 classrooms and state-of-the-art facilities, said Raymond Barnes, the community superintendent of the Central 1 learning community that includes West Charlotte High. He called the move happy, sad and bittersweet.
“There is so much history,” Stephanie Wyatt-Watson, of the West Charlotte High class of 1990, said. “I was in the band and played clarinet. I remember after all of our football games we would march to the rock (on campus), and that’s when the band would really perform. All of the neighborhood would come out and watch. It was just amazing. It was electric.”
This story was originally published April 30, 2022 at 3:04 PM.
