Rice Schools
This page provides a list of the yearbooks from Rice School that are available in our archives. Copies can be ordered at a rate of $1.00 per page. Please email us for instructions on how to order and make payment. We can copy any pages you request, and you have the option to pick them up or have them mailed to you.
You are welcome to visit our archives to research the yearbooks. Please contact us via email or call (903) 592-5993 to let us know when you plan to visit and what you are researching. We will do our best to have relevant materials prepared to make your trip more efficient and productive.
We are collaborating with the East Texas Genealogical Society to index the yearbooks. We will upload the indexed records as they become available. If the year you are interested in is not currently listed, please check back later, as we appreciate any donations of yearbooks and other materials related to Smith County. Click here for more information.
We have the following years:
1950
1951
History of Rice Schools
The new Rice School was a two room, white clapboard building built on top of the hill near the present Rice School. Later through the years three more classrooms were added. The school had two teachers, Principal Robert S. Boulter and his assistant, Mrs. May Rice. Mr. Boulter taught at many of the rural schools in Smith County prior to 1920. The school had pumped water and a well with a communal dipper. Restroom facilities were outdoor privies. Lunches were carried in a sack, syrup bucket, or by any means possible. Most lunches consisted of biscuits and syrup, baked sweet potatoes, or fried salt pork. Billy Joe Everett, a former student, recalls at times, Mrs. Vera Booth would bring hamburgers in a pressure cooker and sell them for a nickel.
After teaching for seven years, Mr. Boulter ran for County School Superintendent in 1920, but he made sure in the event of his loss that his job as Rice School Principal was secure. Mr. Boulter succeeded and served as superintendent for forty years. During the early years he instituted many good changes in county schools. An important development of the rural high school took place in 1930 and students in grades ten through eleven went to Tyler High School.
In 1939 the Midway School District merged with Rice School District. The old Rice School building was replaced by a new brick building down the hill. The old building was torn down and a bus shed was built in its place. The new school had indoor restroom facilities and water fountains. Lunches were twenty-five cents and served outdoors from a building in the back. The children received their lunches through a small window in the building. They would eat their lunches in the classroom and return the trays after they had eaten. This was practiced until the early 1950’s.
As student attendance grew larger more classrooms were needed. For a few years students in the ninth grade were transferred to Hogg School, leaving only eight grades at Rice School. After the junior high building was built in 1949-1950 the students in the ninth grade returned to Rice School. The new junior high building was built on the north side of the elementary school built in 1939. A cafeteria was built in the old building that once was the auditorium and gymnasium.
In 1956 Tyler and the remaining rural school districts consolidated into one. With this new consolidation of the rural school districts emerged Tyler Independent School District. Soon after the consolidation there was no longer a need for a county superintendent. At Rice School a new wing was built to the east of the old school to house grades fifth and sixth. Law abolished the office of county superintendent in 1978. That same year a new school was built to take the place of all the former school buildings. All of the old buildings were reduced to rubble. All that is left of the old Rice School are the vivid memories of its former students.
Submitted by the Wilma Camp Thedford <wmthed@cox-internet.com> 4 Nov. 2004