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John Ray Davis was born on Aug. 1, 1905, in Stanly County. He attended high school in Winston-Salem and graduated from Livingstone College in Salisbury in 1931.

Davis first taught school at Brown’s Hill School west of Locust. He then moved to Oakboro to serve as both principal and teacher at the “Oakboro Colored School” from 1936 until 1945.

During this time, he married Helen Louise Krone in 1937. Prior to the fall of 1945, Davis moved to Bladenboro in Bladen County, where he was a science teacher and an assistant coach at Spaulding Monroe High School.

In 1953 he returned to Stanly County to become principal and teacher of the “New London Colored School.” During the 1955-56 and 56-57 school years, he appears in the yearbooks of the Kingville School in Albemarle.

Unfortunately, I don’t know the rest of John Ray Davis’ story, but I do know that he passed away on May 10, 1983. Please email me at lpbramlett@hotmail.com if you can add additional information and/or pictures.

{Lewis Bramlett – Stanly County Historical Society}