Jackson Free Press

A hundred years ago, Laurence Clifton Jones established The Piney Woods School in rural Rankin County with $2 and three students. Jones, born Nov. 21, 1884, in St. Joseph Mo., graduated from the University of Iowa in 1908. He turned down a job at Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama, opting instead for the Utica Institute in Mississippi.

Jones began the school in the shade of a cedar tree with students using a fallen log for a desk. Eventually, Ed Taylor, a freed slave, gave Jones 40 acres with an abandoned sheep shed, which served as the school's first building. Local people contributed to the growth of the school, which concentrated on vocational skills along with the "three Rs": reading, writing and arithmetic.

According to several accounts, Jones survived a near lynching in 1918, persuading the mob with his passion for teaching. Instead of lynching him, the crowd ended up passing the hat and collecting money for his school.

Universally recognized for his contributions to the education of African Americans, Jones received honorary doctorates from Clarke College, Cornell College and the University of Dubuque in Iowa, and Otterbein College in Ohio. The Tuskegee Institute also awarded him an honorary master in arts degree. He died in 1975.

The school continues Jones' desire for excellence in education, "changing the world, one student at a time." Piney Woods strives to make a quality education available to students despite their ability to pay.

All this week, The Piney Woods School is celebrating its centennial Founders Week, with the theme, "Build Right—A Legacy of Leadership through Head, Heart, Hands." The celebration culminates with a Centennial Gala for alumni, parents and friends, on Saturday night. For information on the school, visit its Web site.