The last graduating class of the Cleveland High Tigers was in 1967. Beginning in 1967-68, almost all of students from Cleveland High merged with Shelby High (call it transferred, integrated or consolidated if you like).
The great Cleveland High School Hall of Famer Bobby Bell had graduated several years earlier. Bell eventually earned a spot in both the college and professional football hall of fame and won the Outland Trophy in 1962 while playing for the University of Minnesota.
I remember him playing for the Kansas City Chiefs but didn't realize he was from Shelby, NC. He's part of the great tradition of prep football in Shelby.
In Reidsville, Booker T. Washington High School closed with the final graduating class in 1969 and was absorbed into Reidsville High School. There were similar mergers all over the state, Shelby included.
Nice try with your investigating efforts, TGT, but you are misleading, if not just mistaken.
By the time of your 1967 final graduating class of Cleveland High School, the majority of black students throughout the county were already in the white schools. That was just the culmination year of a prolonged enrollment over several years.
We know. Unlike you, we were there. We lived it.
Nothing about it at all like the full blown consolidation of Booker T Washington and Reidsville Senior. That was a true full consolidation of two independent high schools. As mentioned, it resulted in name changes, mascot changes, and further mergers in Rockingham County that should have resulted in viewing Reidsville High School as a fully new entity by the NCHSAA. Only the stated proud relationships the Reidsville faithful had with the powers that be in the WNCHSAA allowed you to proceed without a reset.
And we didn’t have to live yours. It is fully stated in the history of Reidsville High School.
Glad you mentioned Bobby Bell.
Simply put, Bell is the most accomplished football player to ever come out of a North Carolina high school. Along with what you mentioned, Bell was 3rd in Heisman Trophy voting, as a lineman, and a Super Bowl winner.
He was all state as a QB at Cleveland High.
He was accomplished at virtuall every position on the field, as Chiefs head coach Hank Steam noted. He also long snapped for every team he ever played for.
We claim him for Shelby, named an uptown pavilion after him and a major city street.
Some of his mementos are in the Shelby High trophy cases. His nephews played for the Golden Lions.
Bell takes in a Shelby game, from the sidelines, at least once a year. Great guy.
