George Bright donates father’s Campbellsville Junior College Grammar School Diploma

Original Source – Campbellsvillian Spring 2014 – Page 10

June 4, 1927, was a special day for Samuel Allen Bright, Jr.—he was receiving his diploma for graduating eighth grade from Campbellsville Junior College.

At that time, Campbellsville University was an elementary school, high school, and two-year college.

“This diploma is from eighth grade, which qualified [the students] to go to high school,” George Bright, CU Board of Trustees member and son of Samuel, said.

“In that day, if you graduated eighth grade you were considered to be pretty well educated.”

Samuel attended CJC’s high school for a short time before his parents sent him to Illinois to work for the corn harvests and wheat harvests near Canada.

“Grandpa was a grammar school teacher and saw the value of education up to a point,” said Bright. “He probably did not see the value of what he would call ‘higher education.’”

Bright said back in the late 1920s, everything around Campbellsville was a career end.

“If you could farm or make a living doing manual labor, the issue for you was to make a living for you and your family,” he said.

Bright said his father was probably sent to work after eighth grade because he had six younger siblings and his family needed the financial relief.

Samuel grew up, continuing to farm and do carpentry work. He saw the value of an education, though, just like his father.

“He pushed us to go to high school,” Bright said. “He saw that we needed to go to high school.”

Eventually, Samuel started doing carpentry work at CU.

“He did, on several occasions, talk about it with me,” Bright said. “He was proud of the fact that he knew the former President Carter (John M. Carter).”

Bright said some of his father’s handiwork is still at CU.

Bright became connected to CU later in life by a friend of his, former Chair of the CU Board of Trustees Dr. Jay Connor.

“We were talking one day and I learned he was chairman here,” Bright said, “and I said to him, ‘You know, I had thought, from time-to-time, that I might want to make some kind of contribution to the college to honor my father.’”

“He was quick to jump onto that!” Bright said, laughing.

Bright said he and his wife made a gift to CU, and with that gift, the Bright- Redmon (his wife’s maiden name) Commons was created. It is inside the Montgomery Library on campus, housing a lounge and study area for students, as well as Books n Beans, a coffee and snack shop that is open to the public.

According to Jodi Allen, former dean of Student Services, at any given hour there are about 40 students utilizing the Bright-Redmon Commons.

“It is a great space for students who never get the opportunity to go home on the weekends,” she said.

Even after leaving Campbellsville shortly after high school, Bright still has fond memories of his hometown and visits a few times a year.

“It’ s still home to me,” he said.