Remembering Prentice High School, Part I
Ed. note: On March 22, 2026, former Prentice Dragons and their kin gathered outside Montevallo Middle School to dedicate a marker honoring Prentice High School, the all-Black school which stood there until closed by integration in 1970. Following the dedication, folks gathered at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church across the street to share memories of the storied high school. Former students spoke with pride of Prentice as a powerful force in their lives and in Black life in Montevallo. We are delighted to be able to share some of their stories with you. Come back next month for more.
“My stories are short, but listen, I’m proud of Prentice High.”
Kenny Dukes: I'm not a dragon, but I am the child of Dragons. I sound like that, what is the show tonight? -- House of Dragons? So we're in the House of Dragons right now. But it is truly, truly a blessing. Just to hear the stories that I’ve heard all my life. You know, I never saw Mrs Coger in my life, but I can almost feel her putting me in a headlock, because I heard it so many times.
The stories, they shape where we are now. If it had not been for Prentice, for the “little school” in Jacksonville, for the school in Almont, we wouldn't be who we are right now. We're all products in some way or another of those schools. And I'm thinking, I'm tremendously thankful for this opportunity. So we want you to tell the story, especially those that attended. Listen, you can't go to school and not have at least one story, at least one. And what we're doing is we're creating a history, because if the history continues to go untold, then one day nobody will ever repeat it. But it’s truly, truly a blessing.
Ethel Mae Thompson: My stories are short, but listen, I'm proud of Prentice High. I got one story about Mr Rudolph Belisle. During test time, he would go outside, run around out there and climb up in the window to see if we was cheating. You look and you see Mr Belisle. Yes, he did that.
Okay, the other one, Mrs Coger. Mrs Coger told one of the students to get out of the class and go wipe her lips, take that lipstick off. She went out, and she took that lipstick off, and she put some more on, and she came back in Mrs Coger class and y'all know what Mrs Coger did. The electric chair. She said, You're not going to wear that junk in my class looking like a Jezebel. That was Mrs Coger.
And the last one is serious. I am what I am today because of Prentice High School. I was able to start my own business. You all know, I love making clothes. I'm retired now, so I don't, and that was from – and she was mean too -- that mean Mrs Johnson, that was her name at the time, Mrs Johnson. That's Mrs Craig. Mrs Craig taught me how to sew. Whatever, I did, you all, it was due to Mrs Craig, because she was my teacher, and I think that I did well.
Y'all know we had a little cheer. And our little cheer, stand up. Come on, Prentice come on y’all, come on. And this was at our basketball games. Y'all know “Montevallo had a Rooster, yah man.”
Montevallo had a rooster, / Yah man, / And they put him on the fence / Yah man / And he called for Prentice / Yah man / Cause he had to assist./ Yah man.
Birmingham had a rooster, / Yah man / And they put him on the fence / Yah man / And he crowed for Birmingham / They didn’t have good sense.
Deborah Hudson: I have to say, Prentice High had the best band. They used to have some of the best programs. We all went out to different events. On a Sunday, I went on a school trip. We went to Mobile, the city, USS of Alabama, and just different places. So I really miss that, because we learned. We had social skills. And the main thing that we were together. Thank you.
John Johnson: I’m a graduate of Prentice High in 1966. When we were in school, you had to stand up straight and put your shirt in. Yes. I mean, you couldn’t walk around with a shirt out. You didn’t let Mrs Coger walk up behind your back. She would say, put that shirt in, and stand up straight. But you know, it was a blessing to have grown up and have those teachers. They did a wonderful job. Making sure that we all got our lessons, and they would tear your tail up if you didn’t have it.
Willie B. Bolling: I want people to know I'm from Montevallo Negro High, not Prentice. Mrs Lathion and I, I think about the only two here that went to Montevallo Negro High. We were there when they first built it, and she graduated in 1950. I graduated from there in 1953. Mrs Craig was our first basketball coach. We didn't have a gym, and we played outside on the ground. They fixed it just like it was a gym, on the ground, on the back side of the home economic department, and we won every game.
But we didn't play down here, even in Columbiana, because they didn't have gyms, so we had to go to Birmingham. McAdory, Fairfield, Holy Family, Industrial, all those schools, Parker High, we went to those schools, and that's where we played. They came to us in the daytime, like one o'clock, we went to them at night, and when they would see us coming, they would already get mad, because they know we was gonna beat them. When I was in Montevallo Negro High, we did not lose a game.
Mrs Craig, she was Mrs Johnson then. She had never coached basketball. So Mr. Penn, which was my principal, he said, you going to teach these young ladies how to play ball. And she did, and we learned how to play basketball out of a book, a basketball book, and we did that. And every game we won. We won in Birmingham, and I had a chance to play with Willie Mays’s sister. She played at Parker High. We just played, but we had to do all our activities on the ground. And I'm pleased to say that I'm still here. Undefeated.
If you have a Prentice memory you’d like to share, contact us at Montevallolegacy@gmail.com. Submitted by Kathy King and James Salter.