From books to benefits
KCaulder@CalhounTimes.com
Cake walks, benefits, community: These are all things that come to mind when considering the Oostanaula School Community Club. Ever since the building that once housed Oostanaula School was converted into a space for community organizing and fellowship, it has become a place for community members to support one another through all kinds of hardship, from an unfavorable health diagnosis to the loss of a loved one.
The club was formed in the early 1970s by a group of men who shared a passion for music and a deep fondness for time spent at their former school. Oostanaula was shut down after the 19561957 school year and students there were integrated into Calhoun City Schools. The building was left sitting empty. The men, including notable club members Bill
Nesbitt, Boyd White and Jessie Bohannon, decided to ask the school board if they could use the space to
“jam” and play their music with former classmates, according to current club secretary Barbara Talley.
The school board agreed on the condition that the space be used not just for jam sessions, but also as a space to host family-friendly community gatherings in the area.
They also required the club to register with the state to become an official community center. It received that status in October 1974.
Talley was not a member of the club at that time, but she did attend school at Oostanaula as a young girl, beginning in 1956. She was in eighth grade at the time and remembers the school fondly as a place where students and teachers felt like family members.
CARES,
“Everybody was like family. Everybody was friends with everybody else. I wasn’t used to that in school,” she said. “But that’s really how it was. It was a big family out there.”
Oostanaula shut its doors the following school year when it merged with Calhoun City Schools. Talley began high school that year at Calhoun, which she said was a “very, very different sort of school experience.”
“Nobody liked it at first. People thought we were the underdogs, and city kids teased us about being country people who didn’t know anything,” Talley said. “But they found out real quick that we were pretty tough.”
The country kids, she said, taught the city kids how to really play sports, which earned them a bit more respect from their new classmates.
“We played hard ball,” Talley laughed. “We didn’t always play by the rules but we were tough and we didn’t lose.”
Talley eventually transferred to Model High School, where she later graduated. Though that meant she did not spend too much time inside the walls of Oostanaula, she said the time she spent there had such an impact on her that she never forgot it. When she returned to the county as an adult 32 years ago joining the community club felt like a natural way to reconnect with all the people who had made her school days so special — and to rejoin the family that was Oostanaula.
Those she encountered upon her return became regular fixtures in her life.
Community support
Anita Carnes, wife of former county schools superintendent Malachi Carnes, cooked regularly for club meetings. Dalphine Stancill cooked all the chicken for benefits, which Talley said was a big deal because they “had chicken any time we got together.”
George Goble and his then wife Faye Goble performed gospel music there regularly. Goble later installed a sound system at the school building and became the club’s “sound man,” a job he passed down to his stepson, Randy Jones.
They became a family once again, and they were the sort of family that believed in supporting one another.
Rather than evolving solely as an event space for community members to come play music in, the club became something of a charitable organization. They started using the funds raised at jam sessions to help community members, whether they had attended Oostanaula or not, pay for medical expenses, funerals, bills for sick children and just about any other cause imaginable. Nothing was too small or too large for them to take on, so long as the need was great.
“We want to help as much as we can. Everyone that volunteers over there, that’s our goal. We want to see the smile on someone’s face when they’re able to pay their dad’s funeral bill off or something like that,” Talley
said. “That’s the whole goal for the whole group of us. That’s what we’re after.”
Over the years, the club has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the community. Talley said she used to track exactly how many benefits the club had hosted but lost track somewhere in the hundreds. Two in particular stand out in her mind.
The first involved a teenage girl from the Adairsville area who was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Her mother needed help covering the cost of her medical bills.
“We wanted to see that little girl pull through that. She was such a sweet little girl. We raised over $25,000 for that child,” Talley said. “She passed away the next year, but that money that was raised went on to help other kids. Her mother donated what was left to St. Judes.”
The second benefit was held just last year in December on behalf of an employee at Sexton Heating and Air Conditioning. He was hurt and did not have insurance to cover the cost of his medical bills. The club raised nearly $20,000 to help him pay for his therapy.
“We do benefits for people who need things like that and for people who pass away and can’t afford to be buried or for people whose homes have burned,” Talley said. “We mostly focus on medical issues because those are what people bring us, but we will help with anything as long as it is a real cause.”
In the past, there have been a handful of people who attempted to get the club to host benefits for what Talley called “scam reasons.” They claimed to be sick when they weren’t, she said, or they lied about someone passing away. To prevent that from happening, the club now requests that community members get a signed document from the police station stating that their issue is real.
“We don’t want to be like that,” she said. “But this club will not stand behind someone lying to the community. We’re not here for that.”
Want to join
Talley said the club is always recruiting and could use additional hands and support, particularly with cooking. Providing a meal has always been important for the club at Oostanaula, but it is getting more difficult as the club members age.
On the day we met up to talk for this story, Talley was planning to go home and make five cakes and a potato salad to bring to the benefit the following day. While excited and eager to offer her help, she couldn’t deny her desire for someone new to come along and assist the current club leaders navigate a path to the future.
“It is our goal to see that school building stay there. We want to keep it up and going for the community. Our club helps untold numbers of people,” she said. “I don’t know if people realize how much help we give and how much good we’ve done for the people in this county.”
Anyone interested in joining the club can contact Talley at 770-608-2050. Bands interested in playing at club benefits may also reach out at that number.