ALDERSON, W.Va. (Hinton News) – In Alderson, there’s a school some say is a myth. While many knew the building when it was Alderson Academy, few people today can recall Mountain State Missionary Baptist Bible Schools, which occupied the same building from around the 1950s through the 1980s.
Mountain State Baptist Schools was a labor of love by many, including the late Dana L. Stalnaker, who was pastor at Rollynsburg Baptist Church in Talcott during the school’s operation. Recently, his sons, Matthew A. Stalnaker and Mark S. Stalnaker, gave an account of life at Mountain State School, reflecting on events from the early 1970s onward.
Matthew recalled one of his earliest memories: the building’s sheer size. He described not just classrooms but also out-of-area students living there, with two big separate classrooms.
Matthew attended Mountain State for his first and second grades in the early 1970s. He felt the curriculum surpassed that of public schools, as he was academically advanced when he transitioned in third grade. Upperclassmen and underclassmen were taught in separate classrooms, and the self-paced program allowed students to progress beyond their grade level if able. Matthew found that setting your own pace was very productive.
Every summer, a Christian camp was part of life at Mountain State. Matthew described it as more of an extracurricular activity and noted that some boarding students stayed at the school year-round.
The school featured a large dining hall serving meals to boarding students and a canteen with a unique pop machine that opened for selection after inserting money, along with candy bars and other snacks.
The gymnasium was in the basement, and a large auditorium served as both a meeting place for students and, later, the venue for the Mountain State Baptist Bible Conference.
When it came to recreation, Matthew said field trips consisted of going to a local attraction or swimming in the river. He made sure to point out that boys and girls were always kept separate. The girls had one wing and the boys another, and they didn’t swim together.
Matthew described entering the building, passing the administrator’s office and another office to the right, and reaching a grand staircase leading to the boarding rooms above. During the summer, campers used these rooms while the boarding students were away.
Reflecting on family dynamics at the school, Matthew felt his father’s major role there placed responsibility on him and his brother to set a good example.
Mark, who was older than Matthew, remembered about 50 students attending the school. He described the new and challenging self-paced curriculum. All students were in two adjoining rooms, each with private cubicles for quiet study. A couple of teachers were always present, and students could raise a flag for help with lessons.
Building on his earlier point, Mark explained that there were no lectures, as everything was self-paced. He remembered the headmaster, vice principal, and 3-4 teachers.
Moving on to extracurriculars, Mark recalls 2 sports the school participated in. The school had a basketball team that tried to play high schools in the area, but Mark claims Mountain State wasn’t competitive at all. Mark said Mountain State also had a flag football team that played a half dozen or so Christian Schools in a fairly large geographic area. The reason for this, Mark said, was that there weren’t many schools like Mountain State. He said they were fairly competitive in those games.
Mark enjoyed his time at Mountain State, despite the limited science and math offerings. He noted funding was a persistent issue, preventing advancement and stemming from the fellowship of churches lacking the necessary resources. He also felt the building was too large and expensive to maintain, contributing to its eventual closure.
At one point during the mid to late 1970s, a bus or a van—it’s unclear which—was run through Talcott at least to take students to Mountain State.
After the school closed, the camp continued for several years, and the Mountain State Missionary Baptist Bible Conference remained there until relocating to Rollynsburg Baptist Church in the late 1990s. The building was eventually sold and later burned down.
A look at the building in disrepair prior to it buring down
