North Sunflower Academy’s football team is about to enter the playoffs for the first time since 2017, but the Drew-based school’s rebound in athletics is just one part of the story
Last week the North Sunflower Academy Lady Rebel basketball team won their first game of the season and put up nearly more points than was scored all of last season.
The football team is teeing up Friday night to compete in the first round of the eight-man 1A playoffs. Enrollment numbers are north of 200 students at the educational hamlet in Drew. School morale is as high as it’s ever been. This revival of sorts is not due to good luck but intense hard work and careful planning and yes, a few answered prayers.
Established in 1966 and opened in 1970, North Sunflower Academy was one of many “private” schools that rose up to dot the Magnolia State landscape after desegregation laws were put on the books. But over time, the original mandate was erased, replaced and rewritten. NSA flourished early on as the county’s population surged but over the years as it began to dwindle and jobs dwindled, so did the school’s population.
Stafford Shurden is an alumnus of NSA – class of 1991, has served on the school’s board for 17 years and has two daughters (one graduated) at NSA. He’s seen the highs and lows.
“Since then (1991), North Sunflower has always been ‘that school that’s going to close next year,’” Shurden said. “People kept counting us out but here we are 30 years later we still find ways to innovate and do things differently.”
One of those innovations was to hire teachers to teach only one class and not multiple subjects.
“We were one of the first to do that. We had a college professor come in and teach a physics class. Nobody did that and now everybody does that,” he said. “Now when we have alumni come by, they are impressed with how things look. We’re not just maintaining but building new things. Even our students when we go play schools our size, their schools aren’t in as good a shape. They come back with a sense of pride at what we have at North Sunflower.”
Shurden credits a hard-working school board that not only meets and tackles problems but shows up at the school and puts in their own sweat equity to make things better for students and staff.
“Johnny Barnett, (Dr.) Jeff Andrews, Keith Beck who are all on the board and go up there and work. There’s a lot of people who volunteer to make that school look the way it does right now,” Shurden said. “We keep finding people to step up. We’ve been really fortunate to have people in these leadership roles.”
Ten years ago, enrollment was barely over triple digits for the K3 through 12th grade facility. That’s when the powers that be brought in Janet Ray to be their new headmaster. She had been toiling in the public school system nearby.
“My vision was, we needed to grow and generate more funds,” Ray said. “We needed to increase enrollment.”
Ray was also a grant writer and put her own expertise to work for the school and started finding money to first help the school and then families and students.
“We used them to revitalize our campus. We did several upgrades to our facilities that were long overdue,” she said.
The classrooms were enhanced with the latest technology as Smart Boards were brought in as well as computer carts for classrooms.
“Once we did all of that, we started focusing on enrollment.”
A “rebuild it and they will come” type venture. They even reached out and started offering a financial aid program for families. Ray was taken back to find out just how many students weren’t coming to NSA because the tuition gap just wasn’t possible in budgets already maxxed and stretched out.
“We didn’t realize we had so many people in our community that really wanted to come to our school but $100 to $200 a month was keeping them out of our doors,” she said.
This year, as COVID-19 shut down public schools, students who wanted face-to-face learning checked out NSA as an option. They found not only an option but an affordable one that offered no ceiling on the value.
“With them being here every day, we meet their academic, social and emotional needs all at once. That’s a plus for us,” Ray said.
With new coaches coming in who had stacked wins and championships at school in and around the Delta, athletes were attracted to Drew as well. That plan had been put in place by Ray and the board a few years back. Todd Kitchings, himself a Cleveland High School graduate but with kids in the private school system at Bayou Academy was first brought in as an assistant football coach in 2015. Then when the school went all in to upgrade sports, he was their answer as Athletic Director three years ago. The team started its upward climb when coaches brought the right things into focus.
“You have to set goals as to what you want in your athletic program. Number one for us was to take the student athletes we do have and tell them what our expectations are. Forget about wins and losses for a minute. Are we doing the little things correctly?” Kitchings said. “I told them they would be held to a higher standard than other students in our school. And they had to come in and put in the work so to speak. We have to go to practice with a clear agenda of what we’re doing at practice and not just going through the motions. Second of all, we had to get some quality coaches in here. And gosh, do we have them now. Their expectations are probably higher than mine. These kids know where they stand with these coaches and know what’s expected of them.”
Football Head Coach Ricky Smither has brought success to the gridiron, Girls Basketball Head Coach Jenny McCullough has opened eyes with her teams’ early season success and school and player favorite George Roberson is back with the Rebels to coach girls softball and boys’ basketball.
“I think God had a plan for that,” Kitchings said. “I told my headmaster and my board that these are the coaches that we want and anybody would want. I feel like with that piece there the rest is just the kids putting in the work.”
Athletics benefitted from transfers as public schools canceled their seasons. The administration and coaches didn’t want to turn away prospective student athletes but needed assurances they wouldn’t be “one and done” and back to their public school.
“When we talked to these kids who were coming in, we asked that question. They were all, ‘no, coach, we’re here with you.’ And all of our coaches had a big part in that,” Kitchings said. “These coaches can get these kids to the next level. It doesn’t matter that we’re an eight-man football team and a small 1A private school. If you can play at the next level, our coaches will get you there.”
Coach McCullough has transfers from Ruleville Central.
“I talked to every one of them, not just the transfers, that when they started on the team that we are going to do things a certain way. It’s either do that or don’t play,” she said.
Kitchings noted that “there is a good team in place throughout the school that has a plan. We talked to business people in the community because at the end of the day, this school is a business and it needs to be run like a business. If we’re not growing, we’re losing the battle.”
No matter the score in Friday night’s playoff game, the Rebels are already winners with more to come in the classroom and beyond.
