Blanco Vista Elementary
Blanco Vista, which opened in 2008, is named for its location in relationship to the Blanco River which is almost in view from the campus.
Buda Elementary
The first building on the site where Buda Elementary now stands, was built in 1885. In 1908, a larger school was needed, so the building was sold and moved across the railroad tracks. A new two-story building was built on the site, with the first graduating class of six students receiving their diploma in 1910. In the early 1900s, ladies of the community picked cotton to buy the land at the bottom of the hill for a football field. This field, known as Trimble Field, served as Buda’s football field until the schools consolidated. The lower campus was built in 1981. In January of 1928, the Buda High School building burned. A new school was built on the site, preserving the arch and the inside walls of the old school. In 1967, Kyle, Buda, and Wimberley consolidated their schools with one high school, and Buda High School became Buda Elementary.
Camino Real Elementary
Camino Real Elementary, which opened in 2008, is named after El Camino Real, which lies roughly on the path of the “King’s Highway” or the Old San Antonio Road.
Learn more about El Camino Real here.
Carpenter Hill Elementary
Among the earliest settlers in the areas west of today’s Buda was W.H.H. Carpenter, who in 1855 bought the property that, because of the family’s occupation on the high ground, came to be known as Carpenter Hill. Indians still roamed the area when the Carpenters settled just a few stones’ throws from where the current school is. Carpenter had taught earlier in his life and neighboring settlers briefly employed him at what was known as the Belleville School one mile north of Buda. Most prominent among the second generation of the family there was W.H.H. Carpenter’s son, Cyrus Milton Carpenter. Twenty years of age as the Civil War broke out, he was among the many Hays County boys who volunteered for the Confederacy. He was turned down for service due to a medical condition.
Elm Grove Elementary
Elm Grove was established in 1876 as the first state-supported public school in the area. It was the largest school in the county at the time with 63 pupils.
Fuentes Elementary
Fuentes Elementary is named after the late Susie Fuentes, who worked at Kyle Elementary for 27 years and was an active member of the community. She also worked at Marbridge Ranch, a private home for mentally challenged adults, for 16 years.
Hemphill Elementary
The community of Hemphill, seven miles northeast of San Marcos was established about 1900 and named for its location on the William Hemphill land patent. The Hemphill school was consolidated with that of Kyle in 1945. The community no longer exists.
Kyle Elementary
Kyle Elementary campus is located on two city blocks just north of Center Street in downtown Kyle, Texas, and consists of an eclectic mix of buildings. The “Main Building” which houses the administrative offices, nurse’s clinic, and several classrooms was once Kyle High School before Kyle, Buda, and Wimberley consolidated to create Hays Consolidated Independent School District.
Negley Elementary
Laura Burleson Negley was the great-granddaughter of Edward Burleson and Lucy Kyle Burleson (sister of town-founder Fergus Kyle). Her father, Albert Sydney Burleson, was an eight-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Postmaster General in President Woodrow Wilson’s Cabinet. Laura and her husband maintained a home on Mountain City Ranch, the area now known as Plum Creek, and they and their son William have contributed to the community throughout the years. In 1928, at the age of 38, Laura became the first woman from Bexar County elected to the Texas Legislature, one of only a handful of women statewide to serve in the Legislature at that time. Following her term in the Legislature, Laura and her sisters endowed a professorship at the University of Texas Law School and scholarships at Phillips Exeter Academy to honor her two lost sons.
Pfluger Elementary
In 1967, Ralph Pfluger was tabbed to become one of the founding members of the new Hays Consolidated Independent School District after serving on the board of trustees of the Buda School district. He was elected school board president after Red Simon and served in that capacity until 1974, then was re-elected in 2004 and served until 2010. However, his service doesn’t end with the school board. An advocate of the 40 Developmental Assets, Pfluger also mentored at-risk students at Tom Green Elementary School. Read about Ralph Pfluger here.
Tobias Elementary
Rosalio Tobias, namesake of Tobias Elementary, was an advocate for education and the community for more than twenty years. Tobias served in the U.S. Army and graduated from Southwest Texas State University in 1973. In 1983, he became the first elected Latino school board member on the Hays Consolidated ISD school board, served as school board president from 1988-1993 and opened the Rosalio Tobias Learning Resource Center at Kyle Elementary School in 1997. Tobias was awarded the Texas Association for Bilingual Education’s Honoree Award for Community Advocacy in 2000 and presented the Texas State Board of Education “Hero for Children Award” in 2001. Read about Rosalio Tobias here.
Science Hall Elementary
Established in 1876 with 30 pupils near the site of this new school, Science Hall’s teachers were Mrs. Willie A. Andrews and Prof. Pyle. Mrs. Andrews later established a private boarding school for girls at her home, naming it Science Hall Home Institute. She operated this school for several years for girls all over Texas. Science Hall is the name of a community that existed on the east side of what is now IH35 from the late 19th century until the 1920s. During the prosperous days, the community had a cotton gin, a general store, a blacksmith shop, churches, and a school. The school there was founded by Mrs. Willie Andrews, who also served as one of the first teachers. The school district was dissolved in 1926 and the territory divided between Kyle and Buda.
Tom Green Elementary
Buda-ite Tom Green ran a cafe with his wife Margaret in downtown Buda and taught agriculture at Buda High and Hays High. Green also taught veterans classes in an old milk station after World War II. The Greens, a family of educators, donated the land that had been Green’s boyhood home for the new school in 1985.
Barton Middle School
R.C. “Bob" Barton Sr. was a teacher, superintendent, and sometimes janitor, football coach and volunteer bus driver in lean times. He had served in the United States Cavalry and worked as a cowboy, but he also held a masters in economics from the University of Texas and did post-graduate work at Columbia University. He served as a principal in the Kyle school district, and on the Buda school board. He maintained a love of ranching, operating the Coyote Ranch near where Oak Forrest subdivision is today. His son, Bob Barton, Jr., bought the Kyle News while in college on the GI Bill, the newspaper that evolved into what is today the Hays Free Press. A childhood friend and early partner in the paper was William “Mo” Johnson, who later became the Hays school district’s first superintendent.
Armando Chapa Middle School
During the 30 years Armando Chapa worked for Hays CISD, he served as principal of Hays Middle School and Kyle Middle School, and Barton Junior High/Middle School, and as a counselor at Barton for 11 years.
Dahlstrom Middle School
Dahlstrom Middle School is named for Eric and Dodie Dahlstrom, who moved to the family property off FM 1626 in 1933 with their two children, Jack and Betty. Eric raised livestock for a living and also did some farming. He was a trustee of the Elm Grove School for a number of years before Elm Grove consolidated with Buda. He was then a trustee and school board member of the Buda School for many years after the annexation of Elm Grove. The Dahlstrom family joined the Buda Methodist Church in 1941. Eric Dahlstrom was a steward at the Buda church for many years.The family ranch now lies in a nature conservatorship, for the preservation of nature and water quality in the region. Members of the Dahlstrom family still live on the family ranch.
McCormick Middle School
Dr. T.C. McCormick Jr., a long-time Buda resident, has served as the mayor of Buda and as a Trustee on the School Board. Dr. McCormick brought more than 2,000 babies into the world. He has served on numerous boards and committees to enhance the educational process between parents and educators. He was instrumental in the integration of schools in Hays and Austin school districts. Read about T. C. McCormick here.
Simon Middle School
Simon Middle School, which opened in 2009, is named for Delvin John “Red” Simon, a 12-year board member of the Kyle Independent School district, which later merged with the Buda and Wimberley school districts to form Hays CISD in 1967. Simon was appointed to fill a Kyle ISD board vacancy in 1955 and then served as the first Hays CISD board president. By state law, the board of the largest school district in the consolidation became the school board for the new consolidated district. However, at the historic first Hays school board meeting, four Kyle trustees resigned, so they could be replaced by two trustees each from Buda and Wimberley. Then, Simon was unanimously elected to lead the new district’s board. He served as the Hays CISD board president until 1972, when he chose not to run for re-election. Simon also opened Red Simon Ford in 1963 and spent 63 years in the local car business before selling his San Marcos dealership to Chris Griffith. Read about Red Simon here.
Wallace Middle School
In 1999, Hays CISD converted Kyle Intermediate School into Laura Belle Wallace Middle School. Wallace began her teaching career in San Marcos in 1903 and worked for the former Kyle Independent School District for over 26 years. Overall, she spent over a half-century educating the youth of central Texas until her death in 1983 at the age of 99. Wallace is said to have attended nearly all sporting events, and spent several years coaching girls' baseball. Wallace also served the Kyle community by serving as Treasurer of the Kyle Methodist church for 45 years and as the manager of the Kyle Cemetery for over 50 years. Hays County named Wallace Outstanding Citizen of the Year in 1972 for her public works and community involvement.
Hays High School
John Coffee (Jack) Hays, Texas Ranger and Mexican War officer, is not only the namesake of Hays High School and Hays CISD, but also Hays County itself. As an officer, Hays' rangers earned a reputation for individuality and a noticeable lack of military discipline. Hays and his Rangers were involved in important actions at Plum Creek, Salado, Enchanted Rock, and the “Woll Invasion” of 1842, among others. He was among the first to use the 1844 Navy Colt Paterson five-shot revolver, making suggestions for improvements to it that led to the Colt revolver becoming one of the guns that helped win the West. After the Mexican War, Hays pioneered trails around the Southwest, including California and Texas, and received an appointment from the federal government as Indian agent for the Gila River country. In addition, he was elected sheriff of San Francisco County in 1850, appointed United States surveyor general for California in 1853, became one of the founders of the city of Oakland, and ran successful enterprises in real estate and ranching. Senator Edward Burleson introduced legislation that on March 1, 1848, created the county named in Hays’ honor from part of Travis County. Read about Jack C. Hays here.
Lehman High School
Lehman High School opened its doors in August 2004 and was named after the family of Ted Lehman, Hays CISD School Board President from 1967-1979, who donated the parcel of land where the school is located. Ted Lehman dedicated his life to education and farming. He worked on three area school boards within Hays County, was part of his rich farmland that is now the site of Lehman High School.
Live Oak Academy High
In 1855, the community built its first school, Live Oak Academy, with a professor Gibson as the first teacher, followed by John Edgar. The satellite communities of Elm Grove and Science Hall, near the sites of the recently constructed schools by the same names, also had schools and small commercial centers.
