Photo and Article by Valerie Sliker, courtesy Wagener Monthly
Like most married men approaching retirement, Rev. Monroe Danley already has a honey-do list from his wife. This building and construction teacher of 20 years will retire from Wagener Salley High School in June, 2017 to resume working on his farm and to build projects for folks around town. That is, after he builds a new kitchen for his wife.
Danley was born and raised in the Hollow Creek area, the center child with eight siblings raised on a farm with not much more than a “whole lot of love.” He earned a Masters in Building Technology from South Carolina State University and became a licensed contractor in 1986. He went on to build several houses around South Carolina, including the one he lives in today, before accepting a position teaching at WSHS in 1996.
“I love working with children,” Danley told me recently while we talked in his dusty classroom with that wonderful scent of woodworking around us. “The paperwork and taxes in my 1980s construction business got to be more than I could afford. When the opportunity came for me to get into the school system, I grabbed it. Children aren’t as respectful as they used to be and that hurts me. I was raised that if you gave respect, you would earn it in return. Doesn’t happen that way today and it hurts me to my heart.
“The construction program has changed a lot since I began teaching and this is the only one in our county, the others have been phased out. We don’t have many kids in the construction classes now because we don’t have any industry for them to go into. I don’t think we have a lot of homes being built around here right now. The student who completes our four-year program can get their contractor’s license. That is an eight-hour exam, but with the knowledge they gain from here, they can do it.”
WSHS offers a four-year program in building and construction in which the student learns how to build a complete building from the foundation up to the finished project. The student learns masonry, wiring, plumbing and building and can go into a career for any of those fields. WSHS strongly teaches entrepreneurship and leadership skills which enables the building and construction graduate to make a very good living with his or her own “handyman” business, especially in this rural area. There currently is a big need in the Wagener area for skilled home maintenance and repair services.
While WSHS is building upon its core strength of leadership skills and entrepreneurship training, the school will be closing the building and construction program in June of 2017 after Danley retires. However, limited building and construction skills, along with small engine repair, will be encompassed in the new Agricultural Mechanics and Technology (Ag Mech) classes starting in the 2017/18 school year.
“I know I’m blessed,” Danley concluded our interview. “I have been able to do a lot of things. My mother and father taught us that we could achieve anything if we worked hard at it. I have enjoyed it, but I’m at the time now where I think I need to move on. I’ve got four chicken houses, cows, pigs and I’m going to do a lot more row crop this year.”
Danley hopes his class will have several projects to sell at the Wagons to Wagener Festival May 18 – 20, 2017, such as corn hole boards, Adirondack chairs, bird feeders and bird houses.
Rev. Monroe Danley is the pastor at Jerusalem Baptist Church in North, SC. He and his wife Jacqueline have one child, Adrian Monroe Danley, also a WSHS graduate who is now thirty, married and a diesel technician.