Tom Stargell

Thomas Stargell was born in 1949 and lived in the Warren area in the southernmost part of Albemarle County, near the town of Scottsville. Stargell called Warren, where he grew up, “a subsidiary of Scottsville” and notes that the town’s social life “all revolved around whatever was happening in Scottsville.” He graduated from Scottsville School in 1967. He explained that Scottsville School was one of many small schools that flourished before a system of paved roads made school busses or parental cars feasible for taking students to school. Stargell played varsity basketball and baseball. The announcement in May 1967 that Scottsville School would close “happened out of the blue,” Stargell recollected, with no public discussion. He reflects on the challenges of taking students away from their neighborhood schools and sending them to Lane or Albemarle High School: Students were “thrown into the situation” and had to endure “entering into a different social atmosphere or a different social atmosphere…[A]nd the groups at Albemarle were already set, and nobody from Scottsville…[was] going to break into those groups, I don’t think.”  

After graduation from Scottsville School, Stargell attended Old Dominion University and became a teacher. He taught in Portsmouth, Virginia, and then spent 38 years at Walton Middle School. He also became an adjunct professor at UVA, supervising many student teachers.