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A simple
suggestion by a young teacher from Illinois launched the enormously
beneficial relationship between The Crossnore School and Daughters
of the American Revolution.
"Why
don't you get help for your school from the DAR?" Betty Bailey
asked Crossnore Founder Dr. Mary Martin Sloop.
 Miss
Bailey taught at The Crossnore School, and later was a page at
the NSDAR Congress in Washington. She presented Crossnore's
cause so effectively, the door opened for Dr. Sloop to request
Crossnore be placed on the DAR's "approved schools" list.
That happened
"about 1924," said Dr. Sloop, writing in her autobiography
Miracle
in the Hills. Since then, DAR chapters and state organizations
from around the country have been benefactors to The Crossnore
School and DAR individuals have blessed Crossnore with
significant estate gifts.
Physical
Evidence Abounds of Long Relationship
Physical
testimony is evident throughout the campus. There is DAR Drive,
a DAR Cottage, a DAR Cabin and numerous DAR state organization
and chapter plaques decorate the new Wayne Densch Education
Building, representing their commitment to sponsor building
costs for a room, at $25,000 each. The North Carolina DAR
awards annual Citizenship decorations to Crossnore students
and the two largest endowment gifts in Crossnore history came
as bequests from "daughters."
"Without
the help of the DAR we would never have been able to expand
our facilities as we have done, and we could never have served
the boys and girls of our mountain section to the extent that
we have in the three decades since Betty Bailey hit upon that
wonderful idea," wrote Dr. Sloop in her 1953 book.
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Dr.
Phyllis Crain with the late Dr. Emma S. Fink, long time
trustee and daughter of the founders.
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Executive
Director Phyllis Crain speaks annually at various state
conferences as well as giving presentations at Continental
Congress.
"Dr.
Sloop started the Crossnore DAR chapter to which I belong,"
Dr. Crain said. "This organization has children at its
heart. Chapters from all over the nation have helped
us, and individual members who remember us in their
wills make such an incredible difference. DAR members
are angels among us.
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"I
honor the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution
and will be forever grateful for how they bent to the task
in our earliest years, and how they still hold us aloft today."
The DAR
is a service organization made up of approximately 200,000
members with over 3,000 chapters. These chapters are located
in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Australia, Canada,
France, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
Both North
Carolina and national DAR officers have a position on The Crossnore School board of trustees.
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