Nineveh School (Hickory High School in "Hoosiers")

Our team was first known as the Bluebirds, but the mascot was changed to the Eagles to sound a little more ferocious. We won the county tourney in the mid-1950s. But basketball was not the school's only claim to fame. Nineveh's founding fathers made sure that education was a priority. The first academy, or secondary school, was formed in 1852 and met in the frame church southwest of the Nineveh Christian Church. That building still stands as part of a barn. The first high school was built in 1873, located south of the intersection on the right at the top of the hill. According to historian Ruby P. Hibbs, Nineveh High School was thought to be the first township high school in the state. Unfortunately, records to verify that fact were destroyed when the state superintendent's office was flooded in the early 1900s. The last Nineveh School building was dedicated in 1906. The Franklin Democrat stated: "Architects and school men pronounce it to be one of the best constructed buildings in the state." It was indeed a beautiful, stately building, with a wide wooden staircase ascending from a central foyer -- the setting for one scene in the movie. The last class to graduate from Nineveh High School was in 1966. Nineveh high school students then consolidated with high schools from Morgantown and Trafalgar to establish Indian Creek High School. Elementary students remained at their respective schools for almost 20 years before they also went to new faciiltiies in Trafalgar. Hollywood came to Nineveh with movie stars like Gene Hackman, Dennis Hopper and Barbara Hershey as well as some young, unknown basketball players to film "Hoosiers" in 1985. Local students and citizens became extras in the movie, and for a while Nineveh School was back in its glory days of the 1950s. But it was business as usual for the teachers and elementary students who continued their classes while the "camera, lights and action!" was going on right outside their classroom door. The movie came out in 1986, and ironically, the school closed its doors for the last time that year as students went to the new Indian Creek Elementary School. Nineveh School, and all of its history, was tragically lost in a fire in the mid-1990s. But, as they say, the memories will always live in our hearts.