{"id":171133,"date":"2026-02-27T06:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T06:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/171133\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T06:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T06:07:07","slug":"alumni-recall-days-of-their-segregated-school-in-jacksonville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/171133\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni recall days of their segregated school in Jacksonville"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">ONSLOW COUNTY, N.C. (WNCT) \u2014 Jimmie Sidberry, Willie Saunders, Edward Spencer, and Georgia Williams, alumni of the former Georgetown High School, which now is the sight of the Onslow Water and Sewage Authority, roamed the halls once again, reflecting how the current office buildings used to be bathrooms, science classrooms, the principals office, and even the school\u2019s library.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cI remember we used to come to this room, had to be very quiet,\u201d Saunders said. \u201cWe could check out books, but we couldn\u2019t chew gum.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The school was the first to become accredited in Onslow County and, in 1955, it became the first football team from Onslow County to win a state title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A piece of Georgetown\u2019s story that will forever be remembered is the tragic bombing o the school in 1966. Edward Spencer was part of the last graduating class before the school closed down after the event.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThe bomb went off from 3 to 4am, but because of divine intervention and whatnot, it could\u2019ve been 4pm,\u201d Spencer said. \u201cBecause it went off on graduation day, had that intervention not taken place, I wouldn\u2019t be here now, and about four or 500 other students wouldn\u2019t be here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Watch the video above for more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wnct.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WNCT.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"> For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WNCT. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ONSLOW COUNTY, N.C. (WNCT) \u2014 Jimmie Sidberry, Willie Saunders, Edward Spencer, and Georgia Williams, alumni of the former&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[81418,81419,81423,116,118,117,81424,36274,81422,81421,81420],"class_list":["post-171133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-edward-spencer","tag-georgetown-high-school","tag-georgia-williams","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jimmie-sidberry","tag-onslow","tag-onslow-water","tag-sewage-authority","tag-willie-saunders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}