Researched and written by Myrtle Watson

Even before Argyle became a town in 1881, the settlers had provided a school for their children. The Graham school house served as both school and church and was located north of what later became the Graham-Argyle Cemetery. The building burned in 1887.

It was easy to establish a school in the mid 1870's. Any interested group of parents could apply to the county judge for the state available school fund which was based on the number of children enrolled in the school. The Graham school started about 1875 along with Oak Grove (Lane) and Bullard (Stoney Ridge).46 In 1887, Beulah and Litsey were organized.47 There were numerous schools in the area because the children had to walk to school or ride ponies. When the county schools were unable to pay their teachers during this period, the commissioners court permitted the 1877 personal and real property taxes to be levied in each district for this purpose. Graham's rate was twenty-eight cents per one-hundred dollars of evaluation.48 Apparently the Graham school did not hold sessions every year because no record exists of its annual reorganization (as required by law) until 1881 when the school received $119.20 as its share of the state's available school fund. Mr. W.C. Herrod was listed as the teacher for the forty pupils who ranged in age from eight to fourteen.

In 1884, the county was divided into seventy-three school districts. Each district was numbered, had definite boundaries and was controlled by an elected three member board of trustees. J.C. Smith, P.M. Faught and J.F. Chinn served as the first school board for the Argyle No.41 District. (H.R. Fehlison, who was the first trustee of the Graham-Argyle Cemetery and a town merchant, was a school trustee in 1885.)

The district's enrollment of eighty-five students in 1884 undoubtedly was too large for the Graham building.50 A second, two-story frame building, The Argyle School, was constructed, probably in 1885, on a site in the southwest corner of the town, west of the railroad tracks and east of the Graveyard Branch. James and L.J. McDowell deeded this acre of land October 26, 1886 to the county judge for free school purposes for the sum of $100.00 51 The common method of financing country school buildings at this time was by private subscription. The Argyle school opened for classes on November 2, 1885, while the Graham school had started on October 19, 1885.52 In 1886, all children attended the school in "downtown" Argyle. Classes were held for five or six months. "Sums" were done on a slate with a slate pencil, and reading lessons came from the McGuffey Readers. In 1891, Argyle had grown to be the fifth largest school in the county with 107 students, even though the district had been reduced in size in 1886 when the Commissioners Court established the Pilot Knob School District No.75 from a portion of the Argyle and Brown school districts.

Until 1904, when the voters approved the first local school tax of twenty cents, the Argyle school survived solely on the money received from the state school funds.

When the county school board classified all the schools in 1912, Argyle was considered a third class or two year high school - nine grades.54 The students who wanted more education or who were planning to go to college had to attend the Denton High School.

The locale of the Argyle schoolhouse presented a problem, as heavy rains flooded the school and the area around it. To remedy the situation, B.W. Meadows, a long time resident, bought the land for $50.00 from the County School Board on August 10, 1929 and then donated 6.074 acres on the northeast corner of his farm to the Argyle School District.55 On this land, a new, hipped-roof, brick building was constructed in 1929 with thirty-year bonds for $4,000.00.56 The building is still being used as part of the elementary school. The former Stoney Ridge Schoolhouse (torn down to make room for the gymnasium in 1957) was moved to the school campus in 1933 and was used as the first lunchroom. Lillian Meadows Thompson had made arrangements to participate in the federal government's lunch program. She and her sister-in-law, Jewel Meadows, prepared and served the meals to students during 1933 and 1934. The federal government funded the entire program in the early days following the depression. In 1935, the Argyle Masonic Lodge, No.698, gave the school its building which was then moved to the school campus. Again the federal government, through a WPA project, paid for the moving of the building and the remodeling of it into an auditorium for school events. This project provided "paying jobs" for the men of the community who had been unemployed due to the depression.

Consolidation of the smaller school districts and the advent of the school bus began to change the patterns of education in the 1930's. Argyle now taught ten grades and owned three busses which were driven 119 miles a day to bring students to school. One by one - Stoney Ridge, Beulah, Pilot Knob, a portion of Litsey and Prairie Mound, and finally Lane - closed their doors and became a part of the Argyle Rural High School District. Although still considered a common school district, it is administered by a seven member school board. Additional buildings were constructed in 1957, (gymnasium) 1966, (Junior High Building) and 1970 (Elementary School addition and cafetorium). In 1981 it is the only common school district remaining in Denton County.

High school continues to be completed at Denton High School or other neighboring high school - Northwest, Ponder or Lake Dallas. The choice is left entirely up to the high school students and their parents. Denton High School is the only school to which Argyle provides bussing for students. All others require that students provide their own transportation.

National recognition came to Argyle School in 1973 when Mark Coughran, an eighth grade student, traveled to Washington D.C. as a finalist in the National Spelling Contest. Gaynelle Norton, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Scott Norton, was named the Valedictorian of the 1981 graduating class of Denton Hiqh School.

Members of the Argyle Eagle Band have also bought honors to Argyle School. In May of both 1974 and 1975, the band won a first division trophy at the Sandy Lake Band Fun-Festival held in Carrollton, Texas. It received a second division trophy in 1976. The forty-two piece Argyle Eagle Band, assisted by the Eagle cheerleaders, marched in the North Texas State University Homecoming Parade in the fall of 1974. It was the only Junior High band entered in the marching division competition and won the Homecoming trophy for the "Best High School Band". The band wore "home-made" uniforms and played John Phillip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever." In 1975 the Eagle Band won a first division rating and trophy at Munday, Texas in the Munday Junior High Band Concert and Sight Reading Contest.

For the first time individual students competed in January 1974 for a place in the North Texas Honor Band. Twenty-one students from Argyle were chosen to play in the ninety-member band that year. In 1975, eighteen members placed in that honor band and in 1976 four of the nine musicians competing from Argyle placed in the 120 members honor band.

When band director Kay Kennedy came to Argyle School in 1972 she organized the first school band which contained forty-eight students in grades five-nine. For the first time in the school's history, a school band presented a half-time show at the 1973 homecoming football game. In the bicentennial year there were two bands under Kay Kennedy's direction - a fifty-two piece Junior High Band and a thirty member beginning band composed mostly of sixth graders.

The band presents school concerts and performs for Smile Day at the Denton State School as well as for special performances such as the dedication of the historical marker at the Graham-Argyle Cemetery on May 16, 1976.

Changes in the state law changed the Argyle School to an independent school district in the 1978-79 school year. The 1981 enrollment of 420 for grades kindergarten through nine has added additional administrative staff and faculty. Superintendent Jim Smith and Principal T.W. Marlin, Jr. head the administrative staff in 1981 along with twenty-two teachers, four special education teachers, one counselor, one librarian and three teachers' aids. The school district began to provide its own tax assessor-collector in the 1970's. Those serving in that capacity have been E. Copp, Mike Needham, Myrtle Watson, Paul Lumpkins and Donna Lumpkins. A local board of Equalization also served to settle any of the taxpayers problems through 1981. However, the newly created County Tax Appraisal District will begin to function in 1982 and there is doubt as to what the local district will need to provide. Members of the current Board of Trustees of the Argyle Independent School District are: Dr. Art Cooper, Mary Margaret Moore, Ted Coughran, M.H. Tinker, Dr. Scott Norton, Jimmy McMahan and Malcolm Gay.