Historical Highway Markers

Konnarock Training School (1924-1959)

K-82

Konnarock Training School, established in 1924 by the Women's Missionary Society of the United Lutheran Church in America, educated children from isolated mountain communities. Lutheran missionary Kenneth Killinger and lay leader Laura Lu Scherer Copenhaver had advocated the school’s founding as a crucial step toward meeting the spiritual, intellectual, and physical needs of the people of Appalachia. Built on land donated by the Hassinger Lumber Company, Konnarock was a regional boarding school for girls but also provided day classes for local children. In 1936 a medical clinic was added to serve the surrounding community. Konnarock Training School closed in 1959.

Department of Historic Resources, 2015

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

James E. Gay, Konnarock Training School: Its Spirit Lives On (Lynchburg: Warwick House, 1998) http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-04272003-171303/unrestricted/ACh2ETD.pdf J. S. Hamm, “We Can’t Die Without Letting them Know: Oral Histories of Konnarock Training School Alumnae and Faculty” (Ph.D diss., Virginia Tech, 2003). Mary A. Evins, ed., Tennessee Women in the Progressive Era (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2013). Sheree Tannen, Kenneth Killinger, Mountain Missionary (Lynchburg: Warwick House, 1995).