Holmes Middle School celebrates 50th anniversary

The Holmes Middle School orchestra performs during the 50th anniversary celebration.

Students, teachers, alumni, and community members celebrated the 50th anniversary of Oliver Wendell Holmes Middle School in Lincolnia Oct. 21 with musical performances, reminiscences, a 5K run/walk, dedication of a new Little Free Library, and cake.

School board member Sandy Evans presents a school board resolution to Holmes Middle School Principal Margaret Barnes. From the left: Evans, Barnes, and at-large school board members Ilryong Moon and Ryan McElveen.

Student entries in a poster contest (on the theme “No Place Like Holmes”) and an essay contest were displayed, as well as information about the school’s history.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution earlier this year congratulating Holmes on its anniversary, and a framed copy of a resolution honoring the school was presented during the 50th anniversary ceremony by School board member Sandy Evans (Mason).

The celebration included several anniversary cakes.

“I consider Holmes my school,” said Mason Supervisor Penny Gross, who lives a couple of blocks away. Gross served on the PTA board when her children were students at Holmes and volunteered in the school clinic.

Holmes was one of the first middle schools in Fairfax County to include the sixth grade, she said, and it’s one of the few in the county with an IB Middle Years Programme.

Holmes students perform “Candy Man.”

Principal Margaret Barnes cleared up the confusion around whether the school is actually 50 or 51 years old. While the school building opened in 1966, construction wasn’t fully completed, so students spent the first year in a split shift with Poe Middle School, she said. As a result, the official opening date for Holmes is 1967.

Her goal for the past year was to have every student carry out 50 acts of service and read 50 books – a goal mostly met.

Barnes told how the land where Holmes now sits was once held by a plantation owner who had a slave named Margaret. “Here I stand on the same land, a different Margaret,” she told the audience, noting that her mission is to help ensure students have an opportunity to “live out their dreams.”

In the 19th century, Daniel Minor owned 300 acres, which included the land now occupied by Thomas Jefferson High School and Weyanoke Elementary School, as well as Holmes, states a summary of the school’s history. His will, signed in 1862, freed his slave, Margaret and her children, and gave his other slaves “the privilege of choosing their own masters when sold,” but forbade them to be sold to anyone other than a resident of Alexandra or Fairfax County, “unless they otherwise prefer.”

Students write comments about their school.

The land then passed down to Daniel Minor’s son, Albert Minor of Alexandria. After Albert died in 1896, the land was divided among his nine children, including Martha Ellen Minor who owned Lot #6, where Holmes was eventually built.

The land changed hands several times and by 1965 it was owned by the Deavers family when the Fairfax County School Board acquired it for the construction of what was then known as Holmes Intermediate School. Quida Deavers Reynolds was awarded $193,750 for a three-acre plot, and George Deavers was awarded $21,000 for a neighboring parcel.

Del. Vivian Watts spoke at the ceremony about the important role of the school decades ago in meeting the needs of an influx of refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia and its continuing efforts to welcome immigrants and embrace diversity.

The Holmes PTA is raising money for an electronic sign.

Others who spoke at the ceremony included Sen. Dick Saslaw, at-large school board members Ilryong Moon and Ryan McElveen, and PTA President Julie Strandlie.

Fabio Zuluaga, the Region 2 Assistant Superintendent told the students in the audience, many of whom were born abroad, “you are the new generation of leaders our country needs.”