Draft:Owen Middle School

• Comment: It's still unclear what source was used for what section. Shadow311 (talk) 19:25, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

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Charles D. Owen Middle School (often called Owen Middle School) is a public middle school in Buncombe County, teaching grades 6-8. Owen Middle School is located at 730 Old US Hwy 70,Swannanoa North Carolina. It's current Principal is Bradley McMahan

Overview

Owen Middle school's mascot is the Owen Warcolt and the school colors are maroon and grey. This school (as of 2024) is home to over 418 students, 2 counsellors and 35 teachers. The student to teacher ratio is 11:1 and the student to counselor ratio is 240:1 Owen Middle has a GreatSchools Summary rating of 4/10, as of the 2022-23 school year.

Owen District Schools

Elementary Schools	Middle Schools	High Schools
Black Mountain Primary (K-3)	Owen Middle (6-8)	Owen High (9-12)
Black Mountain Elementary (4-5)		Swannanoa Valley Community school (9-12)
WD Williams (K-5)

Education

In the 2022-23 school year, Owen Middle School was under average for State Required Testing in both Reading in Math but above the State average for Science. In Math, 43% of students were proficient, 36% of students were proficient in reading and 72% of students were proficient in Science.

Athletics

Athletics

Fall	Spring
Football	Girl's Softball
Girl's Volleyball	Boy's Baseball
Cross Country	Track
Tennis	Girl's Soccer
Boy's Soccer	Golf
Cheerleading

No winter sports have been added to the Owen Middle Website.

Students in 6th grade can not participate in sporting events, but can attend practice as "managers" Cheerleading participates during Football games during the fall and Basketball games during the winter. Both Fall and Winter sports schedule's are posted on the Charles D. Owen Middle School website All of these dates may change/be delayed based on the effects of Hurricane Helene.

History

The building where Owen Middle School lies today was built in 1928 and was originally called Black Mountain High School, which held grades 8-12. The High School was closed in 1954.

Drawing of Black Mountain High School Campus featured in a 1954 school year book.

The following year, 1955, Swannanoa and Black Mountain schools unite to form a singular school, Charles D. Owen, named after the local textile tycoon, Charles Dexter Owen, . Black Mountain High School's old mascot was the Dark Horses and Swannanoa High School's mascot was the Warriors, which unites to form The Owen War Horses, which is still the current mascot for Owen High School. Two years later, Black Mountain College also closed it's doors. Both closes was a result of a lack of proper funds. Black Mountain College finally paid off all of their debts in 1962. From 1964-1968, Owen High School Girl's Basketball went on an 87 straight game winning streak under Coach Bill Rucker, scoring over 4,064 points in total, averaging 46 points per game. This was in a world where Girl's teams were not given equal funding as Boy's sporting teams, In 1966, children going to George Washington Carver Elementary School (The Black mountain school for African-Americans) were given the option to send their kids to Black Mountain Elementary. That year, 90 children joined all white schools, 65 black students enrolled into Black Mountain Elementary and 25 joined Swannanoa Elementary. Soon after, Carver Elementary was shut down. In 1991, Black Mountain High School moved locations to a part of the Presbyterian Home for Children campus. This gave Owen Middle school the old campus. In 1991, both Owen High School and Owen Middle opened there doors to there new locations. In that same year, Owen Middle School expanded to fit the growing community's needs.

Hurricane Helene efforts

On September 27, 2024, Owen Middle School and Buncombe County was hit by Hurricane Helene. Owen Middle School was internally flooded and the Softball and Baseball fields were both destroyed. Charles D Owen and the surrounding district schools opened on October 25, 2024, 28 days after the effects of Hurricane Helene. Go to the Owen Middle School website for more information.

Who was Charles D. Owen?

Charles Dexter Owen, (known by Charles. D Owen) was born on October 17, 1904 in Providence, Rhode Island. Charles D. Owen moved to Dartmouth, Massachusetts, in 1930 to work at his Grandfather's business "Beacon Manufacturing", founded in 1904. In the early to mid 1930s, workers started a strike, making several Beacon plants shut down. Owen III argued to Charles D. Owen that Beacon should move their main plant further south, to access cheaper materials like water, cotton, and electricity. So, by 1936, all of the old plant's materials were shipped by train to the recently opened mill, located in Swannanoa, NC. This Swannanoa plant was built in 1923.

Photo interior of Beacon Manufacturing, undated.

At 1 million Square Feet, it became the largest blanket factory under one roof in the whole world, making the already massive Swannanoa, NC, reach higher heights. The Owen family provided services, such as housing and healthcare to their employees, forcing them to stay at Beacon, because there employees could not afford housing outside of Beacon's support. “The Mill controlled everything in Swannanoa from the price of haircuts to the price of groceries." Says Gene Mill, a local growing up in Swannanoa. "The Mill provided a fire department, maintained the streets, provided water and electricity, and just about every other need you could think of. There was even a grocery store owned by The Mill, called The Home Store..." Beacon products have been used in TV shows, such as The Big Bang Theory, Twin Peaks, and The Andy Griffith Show. There's no doubt that Charles Dexter Owen shaped Swannanoa and the surrounding areas in an outstanding way... Charles Dexter Owen died on December 2, 1990 at the age of 86 and was buried in Fletcher, North Carolina. The factory's ownership was transferred to Charles D. Owen's son, Charles D Owen II for the remaining years of it's existence. In April of 2002, Charles D. Owen II sold Beacon to National Distillers

13 years after the death of Charles D. Owen Senior, in September of 2003, Beacon was burned down by a teenage arsonist. For more than 80 years, the floors had been routinely soaked in oil to hold down explosive wool and cotton lint, making the fire grow at a rapid rate. “It had become a pilgrimage site,” Williams says. “You saw old guys in pickup trucks sitting a block away, crying.” Nearly 400 firefighters from 32 departments came to the building to fight the fire.

Electives and Clubs

Owen Middle has a lot of Encores/Electives, such as...

• Band
• Project Lead the Way
• Spanish
• Exploring Career Decisions
• Chorus
• Health/Physical Education
• Visual Arts
• Strings

Owen also has a lot of clubs, taking place afterword school.

• Active Stuff Sports Club
• Battle of the Books
• Board game club
• Cooking Club
• Dark City Voices
• D&D (Dungeons and Dragons)
• Intramurals
• Fuse Bead Club
• Global Arts
• Hispanic and Latino Americans Culture Club
• Math Essentials
• Math Counts
• Photography Club
• Reading Essentials
• Running Club
• Soccer Club
• Student Government (SGA)
• Video Game Club
• Yearbook Club
• Vision Club