The information provided here was put together by E. Ray Smyth for the Lueders-Avoca Alumni Web Site and afterwards thought it should be made accessible for the TxGen Web Project.
The information was provide by the Lueders alumni members who formerly lived in the area or attended the Hastings School.
As the car and a modern means of transportation i.e. the school bus developed, the necessity of providing public education in close vicinity to the students diminished and the small country schools such as Hastings were consolidated into the larger existing schools in towns and cities.
AND, thus it was in the mid forties that Hastings in Shackelford County merged into the school system at Albany, Texas. However, several Hastings families moved into Lueders, Texas in Jones County so their children could attend the Lueders School which was only 2 miles from Hastings whereas Albany in Shackelford County was 20+ mile distant.
Additional info and memories is provided as follows:......
I went to Hastings in first grade, I don't know when we transferred to Lueders. But, it was early in 1st grade, the year after Leonard Younquist left Hastings.
We lived the first house north of the school behind some Batchler brothers whose names I don't remember.
Submitted by:... George Cox, Lueders High School - Class of 56 - April 17, 2007
I have some more history for you about the Hastings School. In the 1920's the teacher was Mr. Herrick (father of Ralph and Herman Herrick, local merchants). Mr. Herrick would walk the approximately five miles to school each day and carry his shotgun, and on his way home in the evening he would shoot enough quail for the family's supper. Ralph told me that they ate lots of quail in those days.
That's all of the history of the rural schools that I can think of for now, if I think of anything else I will pass it along.
Submitted by:... DeWitt Wilhite, Lueders Hich School - Class of 39 - April 23, 2007
To View a Photo of Hastings, Click:..
HERE 
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Ray Smyth Web Site ]