The School at Pippa Passes

The School at Pippa Passes by LAUREL ANDERSON The other day a woman stopped by the college to see what had changed, and, more important, what had remained the same since her days as a Caney Creek school girl. She saw Alumni Hall that had grown up in her absence being dismantled to make room for a new college dining room. She saw the austere New Science Building, the dozers clearing one of the last bits of bottom land to make way for a modern gymnasium, and she traveled on the hard road that links the Caney community with Floyd County and places beyond . She saw familiar sights, too. There was the wily creek with its companion, Caney Mountain, board and batten homes, rock walls, stone stairs—reminders of the woman and of the mountain people who started it all fifty-eight years ago. Little is known or remembered of Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd's life in Back Bay Boston before she came to Kentucky and settled on Troublesome Creek near Ivis in October 1916, which probably would have been just as well with the woman who once remarked, "Caney is my whole life. I counted my life from the day I arrived in the mountains." She came from a wealthy family but the money had disappeared by the time she arrived in the mountains with ten dollars in her purse. A case of spinal meningitis left her permanently crippled; however, she persevered and pursued the best education Massachusetts had to offer. Alice Lloyd and her mother, Ella Geddes , did not come to the mountains intending to start a school, but it was not long before the idea began to take shape. It be108 came a reality when Abisha (Bysh) Johnson offered Mrs. Lloyd land on Caney Creek if she would start a school. Though no one knew it at the time it was an offer that years later would come to symbolize Ae history of the college, a history that has combined the foresight and dedication of one woman with the hard work and determination of many mountain people. The women's first two years in Eastern Kentucky were spent getting acquainted with the people and writing home to friends about conditions they found in the mountains. The friends responded by sending box loads of books, magazines and clothing which Alice Lloyd and Mrs. Geddes distributed among their neighbors. By 1919 Caney Creek's one room elementary school that had been presided over by Maryland Slone, Lige Owens and Noah Slone had been replaced by a bigger building ; and when the doors opened the three teachers were among the first to enroll in Mrs. Lloyd's high school. That year was significant for another reason: It marked the arrival of June Buchanan, Mrs. Loyd's dedicated friend and assistant, who continues the work of the founder today. By 1923 a two year college had been added, and local people later joined Alice Lloyd in taking pride that of the first seven graduates , five became doctors and two were teachers with master's degrees. As the name implies, Caney Creek Community Center was more than a school; and although Alice Lloyd had never heard the term "community outreach programs," in deed she espoused them. Among her friends in the Northeast she recruited opera singers, scholars and college deans to teach at the Center. Friends who were missionaries and teachers came, too. Some were sent into the communities of Vest, Carcasonne, Bosco (now Hueysville ) and Allen to help launch schools that Mrs. Lloyd, early days flourished until the Thirties when counties began organizing and building their own. Trained nurses often traveled from the Center throughout the area delivering babies and instructing families in postnatal care. A mule-pulled jolt wagon took books from the Center into homes and schools. There was also the Exchange Store, a tradition started informally by Alice Lloyd and her mother in their cabin on Troublesome Creek that still thrives. Mrs. Lloyd was an indefatigable letter writer; and although her letters sometimes exaggerated circumstances in the mountains, they resulted in tons of clothing, bedding, books and household items being sent to Caney Creek Community Center. The gifts...