Mount Carmel School Celebrates 100 Years

It was a huge weekend of celebration, family, food, and fun as more than 600 people gathered on the campus of Mount Carmel School at Vancleve on June 21-23 to celebrate the school’s 100th anniversary.

“We had an amazing Centennial Celebration,” a spokesperson posted on the school's social media pages.  “Thank you to everyone.”

The two-day event featured a car show, food vendors, and a concert by Cochren & Co. on Friday night and a day of inflatables for kids, a school fair, tours of the museum, and a historical walk-through on Saturday.  The weekend was capped off by an old-fashioned picnic and auction.

Friends and former students of the Christian school took advantage of the event to tell stories, visit classmates, and remember the good the school has done through the years. 

“We have been working diligently this year to pay down all the debts the school owed,” the spokesperson stated.  “A special highlight and surprise at the very end were the presentation of a check from the Former Students Association (FSA) and an impromptu fundraiser from attendees raising another $4,800 in the last few minutes.”  The event raised enough money to completely pay off all remaining debts of the school for 2025.  

“This allows Mt. Carmel School to enter the next year (and the next century of ministry) completely debt free!” the school announced. 

The school was started in 1925 by Lela G. McConnel, a resident of Pennsylvania, when Green and Cora Lawson donated twelve acres to start a school near the mouth of White Oak Creek.  She established a Post Office, which she named Lawson, in honor of the donation.   McConnell chose the name “Mount Carmel” for her new mission and school, in reference to the place of Elijah’s Biblical victory over the prophets of Baal.  From there, she went to work.

Over the next twenty-five years, she raised nearly a million dollars through donations to support the school and educate generations of Breathitt County students.  The campus grew to more than 350 acres, and numerous buildings were constructed to house, feed, educate, and support the growing student population.  Each year, Mount Carmel received more than double the applications for admission than it could support.

She was later instrumental in the establishment of the Kentucky Mountain Bible College to allow advanced learning beyond the high school years.  The first radio station in Breathitt County (WMTC) was opened following the 1939 Frozen Flood.  

From this beginning, McConnel and Mount Carmel High School supported or built through its ministry twenty-seven churches in communities in Breathitt, Wolfe, Magoffin, Perry, Morgan, Lee, and Owsley Counties.

A 1950 article in The Louisville Courier Journal praised McConnel for her 17-hour a day work ethic and admired her devotion and refusal to accept a salary.  McConnel asked the Courier, “How could I pray money out of the bank accounts of others if I had a bank account of my own?”

She was active at Mount Carmel for forty-six years and admonished her friends and students to “Keep your wheels unclogged and trust in God.”

In 1947, Asbury College granted her the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.

Dr. Lelia Grace McConnell died on April 7, 1970, and was buried in the Lawson Cemetery on the grounds of Mount Carmel School.  Louise Hatmaker, editor of The Jackson Times in 1970, wrote that McConnell was a “colorful figure and strong personality almost equal to her faith in God.”

After her passing, the school continued to grow and prosper.  The campus grew and construction continued with the help of hundreds of devoted teachers, staff members, and volunteers through the years, including Martha Archer, Raymond Swauger, Wilfred Fisher, Robert Cundiff, and others. 

An effort is currently underway to preserve and renovate the original Mount Carmel building and ensure that it continues to be an important part of the campus experience.

As many speakers stated during the two-day event, the work of the school has only just begun.  Mount Carmel has overcome hundreds of challenges and prospered.  Its students and supporters expect nothing less for the future.

“When a challenge would come,” long-time educator and alumnus Robert Cundiff said.  “Miss McConnell would say, Our God is bigger.”  

Just four days before the big event, the Board of Directors announced the hiring of Dan Lorimer as the school’s new Superintendent.  Lorimer will play a major role in the direction of the school in the coming years.

“We expect there will be another great celebration in about a hundred years,” a former Mt. Carmel student said with a smile.  “I don’t expect that I will be here, but the work of spreading the word of God through this place will st