When Marvin Denison joined the faculty at University Heights Academy in the fall of 1975, the school was two years old and had not yet graduated a senior class. It was Denison’s first teaching job, and he imagined he would be there just long enough to find something better.
Back then, it wasn’t clear if Hopkinsville was large enough to support a college-preparatory school without the financial backing of a church or a foundation with deep pockets. Many wondered if the school could survive.
“Yet we’re not only existing after 50 years, we’re thriving because of you — supporters, board members, faculty, staff, students former and current — who believed and sacrificed to make UHA succeed year in and year out,” Denison said Saturday night during a 50th anniversary celebration for the school at the Alhambra Theatre.
The school packed the theatre with old photos and memorabilia, along with some new swag. A few hundred people attended, including dozens of graduates who came from out of town.
As the faculty member with the longest tenure, Denison had the last word during the celebration’s formal program. No one at UHA today can match his institutional knowledge. He leads an assembly at the start of every school year where he gives a pep talk and orientation to the students.
“It’s rare in this age to be able to spend a career in a place that you love — and to find as well the love of your life working in that building,” he said.
Denison met his future wife, Cathy, at UHA. She began working in UHA’s office in the late 1970s. They have been married for more than 40 years. Both of their children are UHA graduates.
The school presented Denison with a plaque that recognizes his “exceptional teaching, leadership and unconditional commitment.”
Denison teaches history, serves as head of the upper school and is the campus expert on everything related to the building and grounds. He is also a former head of the school.
UHA currently has 417 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. At the 2022 commencement, it surpassed 1,000 graduates. The Class of 2023 has 40 students.
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During Saturday’s program, each former head of school was recognized. They are, in chronological order, the late Kenneth Stuckey, Danny Guffey, Kimber L. Barton, Robert Baker, Denison, Linda Ledford, Pam Nunn and Beth Unfried. The current head of school is Tonya Oakley.
Several current and former employees with long tenure at the school were recognized. They included Joy Tilley, Imelda Gorman, Anne Lawson Noel, Barbara Kissner, Tammy Staley and Judy Keller.
Noel, a 1981 graduate who is retiring this year as a science teacher, gave an overview of the school’s history.
Here are the remarks Noel gave on UHA’s history:
On May 11, 1973, the Kentucky New Era ran a front-page story announcing plans for the construction of University Heights Academy, an independent, college-preparatory school in Hopkinsville.
The newspaper story included an architect’s drawing of the school to be built off North Drive. The campus had 50-plus acres. Back then it seemed liked a large retreat on the edge of town.
On May 14, the UHA board of trustees announced the hiring of a headmaster, 42-year-old Kenneth Stuckey, who came to Hopkinsville from the Webb School in Tennessee. Stuckey set up temporary offices in the former New Era building at Seventh and Bethel streets.
The original prospectus that was used to fundraise and recruit students included a letter.
An Open Letter to the Community:
We are proud to be able to offer the children of our community a new dimension in education. University Heights Academy takes for its motto the traditions of classical education.
The Academy is an expression of the desires of the citizens of our community educate their children so that religion, moral discipline and academic achievement shall continue to be their birthright.
In the years to come our children will discover not only the beauty of learning but will learn about themselves as unique individuals. The Academy’s future is as bright as their hopes.
On May 22, plans for a ground-breaking were announced.
During the summer of 1973, prospective students went to the New Era building for their entrance exams.
As it became clear that the North Drive building would not be ready in time for the start of the 1973-74 school year, board members thought of launching classes in the old newspaper building downtown. A local fire official advised against it.
So during the first week of September 1973, UHA opened in the fairgrounds convention center. There were approximately 70 students in grades 1 through 8.
Classrooms were set up throughout the building, a corner here, a spare office there. One of the smallest classes occupied a tiny ticket office at the front entrance. The sixth grade had 20 students, and as the largest class it claimed a business office in the convention center.
During the first several weeks, teachers Ann Poe and Ginny Lawson taught square dancing for PE classes in a warehouse section of the convention center. Some of the students loved this; others endured it.
Science teacher Nancy McGuire used the large fairgrounds as an outdoor laboratory, a harbinger of the great teacher she would become for hundreds of UHA kids for the next two decades.
During recess, UHA kids wandered around the open fairgrounds. They spent time in the stables petting horses through stall doors. As far as we know, no kids were hurt.
Several weeks later, when UHA packed up and moved to the new campus on North Drive, there were doors still waiting to be hung and hallways sticky with wet paint.
During board meetings, trustees “passed the hat” to collect money to pay utility bills. The school’s first secretary drove a yellow VW Beetle, in which she occasionally went around town collecting more money from board members at their offices so the school could make payroll.
Marvin Denison doubled as an extraordinary history teacher and facilities manager. There were parts of the building and campus that only Marvin knew how to open, close and fix. And that’s still true today.
An early student made a deal with the board to work part-time as a school custodian to cover his tuition until he graduated. More than 20 years later, he remembered the school with a generous donation.
UHA’s first mascot was the Blue Devil, and for a few years boys played on middle school basketball teams and girls cheered in blue uniforms.
Then the students voted to ditch the Devil. The green and gold Blazers took hold at the start of the 1976-77 school year with UHA’s first varsity-level team, boys soccer. Soon the school also had varsity boys and girls basketball teams and a girls volleyball team.
UHA was among the first schools in Western Kentucky — and the first in Christian County — to offer boys soccer and girls volleyball. Those early UHA teams burned up the highways to play many away games in Louisville, Lexington, Evansville, and in Tennessee.
The Blazer gym and four additional classrooms were completed around 1977.
Adding a grade level each year, UHA had its first senior class in 1977-78.
The first graduating class had eight students — including one foreign exchange student, a boy from Belgium who joined the school at mid-year.
Outdoor school was an early innovation with upper-school students learning in the Land Between the Lakes area Brandon Springs Retreat Center. That experience transitioned to travels to various cities as the student population grew.
Middle school students joined that trend, and UHA students could claim to have experienced learning and fun in a variety of metropolitian areas. COVID derailed the program for a while, but the faculty hopes to return to a revised plan.
Since those modest beginnings, the “little school that could” has grown in [enrollment] size and in its physical plant, giving Mr. Denison more to look after.
The Blazer gyn and four additional classrooms were completed in 1977. The so-called Back Hall was added around that original footprint in 1998-99. Those classrooms presently house the middle school and include the multipurpose room.
The newest classroom building was constructed in 2018 … It houses the high school classes and the music room.
Various sports enhancements have included improved soccer, baseball and softball facilities, as well as a building that now houses athletic training equipment.
UHA still operates on that promise in the original prospectus. Multiple generations have learned and formed lasting memories at 1300 Academy Drive, and the future looks bright that it will continue another 50 years.
Anne Lawson Noel and Jennifer P. Brown co-wrote the section of this story that contains the school’s history. Brown is a 1980 graduate of UHA. She and Noel were among the first students enrolled when the school opened in 1973.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. She spent 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
