Flagler. Osceola. Broward. Gaines. Florida has many counties, cities and places named after people who impacted its history, and Gainesville area schools have followed this practice. Who were these people, and what did they do to make “significant contributions to the community and the schools” to merit the school board naming institutions after them?
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Stephen Foster are easily recognizable — the Pulitzer Prize winning author of “The Yearling” and the composer of the state song are well-known figures. But, what about P.K. Yonge, Buchholz, Finley and Metcalfe? For this issue’s focus on education, we look at four people whose names live in our area schools.
P.K. Yonge
Philip Keyes Yonge (pronounced “Young”) was privately tutored in the late 19th century and developed an interest in education and history. He earned three degrees from the University of Georgia and had a long career in the timber industry, which included serving as president of the Southern States Land and Timber Company in Pensacola.
Yonge and his wife, Lucie Davis, had nine children. His community service included work on the Escambia County Board of Instruction as well as serving as a Pensacola city alderman and a president of the chamber of commerce. For almost 30 years, he was also a member and chairman of the Florida Board of Control, the governing body for public universities in Florida at the time. In 1921, an elementary school was built in Pensacola that became the first P.K. Yonge School in Florida.
His passion for history led to two significant contributions: first, he helped organize the Florida Historical Society in 1902 and was its president at the time of his death in 1932. Second, he and his son Julian personally amassed a collection of historical materials about Florida. Twelve years after P.K. died, Julian gave the collection to the University of Florida in memory of his father, and the P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History was subsequently established and continues to be a resource for historians to this day.
When the University of Florida created a laboratory school in 1934, they named it after Yonge in recognition of his lifelong commitment to education and his efforts to bring a university system to Florida. The developmental research school on campus continues today as a facility for kindergarten through twelfth grade.
Buchholz High School
Frederick “Fritz” Buchholz (pronounced Byoo-holts) was born in Tampa in 1885. Education was part of his family — his father was a professor at the Florida State College in Tallahassee and later at the University of Florida. Buchholz distinguished himself academically by winning the first Rhodes scholarship for any student in the state of Florida. After graduating from college at Oxford, he came to Gainesville.
Anti-German sentiment ran high during WWI — his father was accused of teaching German ideology to his UF students — but Buchholz’s nationality didn’t limit his opportunities. He taught at Gainesville High School and served as its principal until he retired in 1951. Also interested in athletics, Buchholz helped found the Florida High School Athletic Association in 1920. He coached GHS’s first football team and earned the moniker “the father of football.”
Local historians also know Buchholz for his book, titled “The History of Alachua County,” that preserved many early memories of our area. He also served as a state representative for Alachua County.
When the original Gainesville High School on West University Avenue moved to its present location in 1955, the former location was turned into a junior high and named after Buchholz. The county school board resolved that if the school were ever abandoned, the name would be transferred to another school. Population demand in the late 1960s created a need for two new high schools: Eastside High School and the other located in northwest Gainesville that has continued to carry Buchholz’s name forward.
J.J. Finley Elementary
Jesse Johnson Finley was a lawyer and politician from Tennessee who served as a state senator and later as mayor of Memphis. Military service was in his family’s lineage — his grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War and his father fought under General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. Finley himself served as captain of a company of mounted infantry during the Seminole Wars in 1836.
In his personal life, Finley had his share of tragedy: his first wife, Amanda, died when he was only 24, leaving him with their two young sons. He remarried in 1839, but his second wife, Eliza, died in 1843, leaving two additional children in his care.
According to one source, during his military service, Finley became “so infatuated with the Florida climate that he determined to make that state his future home.” And so he did — he moved his third wife and family to Marianna in 1846 and was soon elected to the Florida state senate. When Florida seceded with the confederate states, he resigned his judgeship and volunteered with the 6th Florida Infantry. Finley fought under General Edmund Kirby Smith (another local school name) and was promoted to brigadier general. He saw action at several major battles, including conflicts near Chickamauga and Atlanta, but a serious wound forced him out on medical leave.
After the Civil War, Finley moved to Lake City and served in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was the first democrat elected to a federal position after the Reconstruction and made a practice of attacking “carpet baggers.” Finley continued in politics and law, living to be 92 years old.
The elementary school bearing his name opened in 1939.
Metcalfe Elementary
Willie Adele Metcalfe once said, “If they didn’t pay me to teach, I would pay them to let me teach.” Her teaching career spanned 55 years across several Florida counties, including Alachua.
Widowed in 1925, Metcalfe obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at UF. She taught kindergarten and elementary and served as principal at several schools, including Kirby Smith. After her retirement, Metcalfe continued to teach and substitute. Metcalfe also published several educational instruction books, including “Methods Used in Teaching Non-readers to Read.”
Described by one source as “a great storyteller, deep thinker and woman of vision,” Metcalfe lived to see the elementary school that now bears her name open in 1960.