SUMMERS COUNTY, (Hinton News) – Editor’s note: This is a companion piece to the “Connections between Concord University and Summers County” series.
The story of A.A. Hopkins (CSNS, 1900) begins with a conclusion but not an end: the current status of the West Virginia Teachers’ Retirement System. The System now shows assets of almost $9 billion and provides annual benefits to 36,394 retirees whose average annual payment is $21,415, modest compensation perhaps but for the vision of Mr. Hopkins in the early days of the 20th Century it would have been zero.
Thanks to Mary Hopkins’ careful reading of our first article, we know that it was A.A., not his father Lewis, who taught in the Summers and Mercer county schools for an astounding 60 years. In addition, he served in the WV House of Delegates from 1938 to 1942 which positioned him to do great good for the teachers of our state.
The 1920s saw considerable concern for the challenge of retaining good teachers, a problem that persisted through the Depression years of the 1930s. Legislation as early as 1919 and subsequent support of the state board of education allowed local school districts to pension teachers who had taught 40 regular terms. Pensions in those days ranged from $20 to $50 per month. But, it was not until Hopkins drafted legislation during his time in the House that WV adopted a statewide teacher retirement system
Hopkins, who had taken a giant step for teachers, took his first steps as a baby on Ugly Branch in the Pipestem area. In later life, he would write the “Genealogical History of the Hopkins, Farley, Cook, Keaton, and Brown Families,” a work essential for understanding the early history of the Pipestem people.
