A grand re-opening ceremony for Hunt Intermediate School is scheduled for the end of October, nearly three months after the school year began.

The Columbus Municipal School District Board of Trustees agreed during a special-call meeting Wednesday to host the ceremony at 5 p.m. Oct. 30, coinciding with both a monument and state historic marker unveiling at the site.

Board President Robert Smith said he’s looking forward to celebrating the revitalized school with the community.

“It’s great for the Columbus Municipal School District, and it’s a great feeling to get the community involved, especially for the students in the past who attended R.E. Hunt High School in 2019 when the tornado came through and destroyed Hunt,” Smith said. “To bring it back to where it is today, it’s really something to see.”

The school reopened in July after being closed for more than five years following an EF-3 tornado that ripped the roof off the building, leaving 12 classrooms exposed. Rebuilding of the campus began in June 2023 and was completed this summer. The renovated campus houses the district’s fifth and sixth grades.

The school also houses the R.E. Hunt Museum and Cultural Center, which celebrates local African American history.
During the meeting, the board began outlining the agenda for the ceremony.

George Evelyn Brooks, who graduated from Hunt in the 1960s, was selected to serve as the guest speaker for the event to speak about the historical significance of the school, which was established in 1953 for African-American students during the last years of segregation in Columbus.

A monument and a state historic marker will also be unveiled during the ceremony.

Trustee Josie Shumake said the monument, which currently sits covered by a black tarp outside the school’s front doors, resembles the monuments in front of Union Academy and Franklin Academy.

“(Hunt) was built by the same architect that did Lee High,” Shumake said. “This was the last gasp of segregation because they decided to upgrade the facilities, so they built a new school for Black (students) that paralleled the white school, which was built about the same time … during that ‘50s thrust to try and do ‘separate but equal.’”

Smith said the board delayed hosting the re-opening ceremony until the monument could be installed.

A historic marker for the site will also be placed just across the walkway from the monument, near the road in front of the school.

The marker was approved in January by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History after the site was declared a state landmark in 2019, Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau Tourism Director Frances Glenn told The Dispatch.

The sign commemorates the former R.E. Hunt High School as a “cultural hub for the Black community” before city schools were fully integrated in 1970.

“Historic markers help preserve local history by documenting significant events, people, and in this case a place,” Glenn wrote in an email to The Dispatch. “The R. E. Hunt School played an important role in our community and continues to do so. A role that should be documented. Our hope is these historic markers will inform and inspire people.”

The board’s agenda for the ceremony, along with additional speakers, will be decided during its regular meeting Monday, Smith said.