Qualla: Concord University

Concord University: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rlevse, Public domain. The town was once called Concord Church. The name was chosen, in 1872, for what it meant: harmony, fellowship, the kind of word a small Appalachian community would use to describe what it wanted to be after the war. In the same year, the West Virginia Legislature passed an act creating a branch of the State Normal School at Concord Church - and the founding committee was led by veterans of both the Union and the Confederacy. There were no state funds for the first building. Five local families gave land and built one anyway.

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Image: Rlevse | Public domain

Concord University: Old Main and the First Fire

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CZmarlin — Christopher Ziemnowicz, a photo credit would be appreciated if this image is used anywhere other than Wikipedia. Please leave a note at Wikipedia here. Thank you!, CC BY-SA 3.0. Classes started on May 10, 1875, with 70 students - all of them aspiring teachers. By 1887 the state had finally appropriated funds for a proper brick building, on the site that now holds Athens Middle School. That building burned to the ground in 1910. The school relocated to it...

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Image: CZmarlin — Christopher Ziemnowicz, a photo credit would be appreciated if this image is used anywhere other than Wikipedia. Please leave a note at Wikipedia here. Thank you! | CC BY-SA 3.0

Concord University: The Mountain Lions

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CZmarlin — Christopher Ziemnowicz, a photo credit would be appreciated if this image is used anywhere other than Wikipedia. Please leave a note at Wikipedia here. Thank you!, Public domain. Concord competes in NCAA Division II as a member of the Mountain East Conference. The athletic teams are the Mountain Lions. Callaghan Stadium - with its artificial turf field funded by donor June O. Shott - hosts football, track and field, and tennis. Anderson Field, on the edge...

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Image: CZmarlin — Christopher Ziemnowicz, a photo credit would be appreciated if this image is used anywhere other than Wikipedia. Please leave a note at Wikipedia here. Thank you! | Public domain

Concord University: Freida Riley and the Rocket Boys

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rlevse, Public domain. In Coalwood, West Virginia in the late 1950s, a young science teacher named Freida Joy Riley encouraged a group of mining-town high school boys to build rockets in their backyards. One of them was Homer Hickam. The boys would go on to win the National Science Fair in 1960. Hickam...

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Image: Rlevse | Public domain

Concord University: The Rahall Center and the Erma Byrd Building

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CZmarlin, Public domain. Senator Byrd was not only a graduate, he also brought federal money. The Erma Byrd Higher Education Center, in nearby Beaver, opened in 2007 as a partnership facility for the region's public colleges - $10 million from the US Department of Health and Human Services, secured by By...

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Image: CZmarlin | Public domain

Concord University: The Campus Beautiful

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rlevse, Public domain. Athens, West Virginia is a small town - about a thousand people - tucked into the Bluestone region of the Appalachian Plateau. Concord University takes up most of it. The university's hilltop campus looks out across rolling Appalachian ridges in every direction. Marsh Hall's cari...

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Image: Rlevse | Public domain