MOUNT ULLA — When Parker Hoffner’s parents dropped him off at Mount Ulla Elementary for his first day of kindergarten last month, he became the fifth generation of his family to go to that school.

Parker’s father, Brandon, grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents all attended Mount Ulla.

It did not used to be called Mount Ulla Elementary, and it used to educate children up through the 12th grade.

According to the “Directory of School Officials of North Carolina,” Mount Ulla had a public school in 1918. In “The Rowan story, 1753-1953 : A narrative history of Rowan County, North Carolina,” it’s said that Mount Ulla was on the list of communities to improve its public school following recommendations from John H. Cook of the Greensboro Woman’s College.

Parker’s grandmother, Millicent Hoffner, graduated from West Rowan High School in 1974, but like her forebears, she started at Mount Ulla.

“When I got to the 6th grade, that’s when they started West Rowan Junior High, which was 7th and 8th grade,” Millicent said. “I went to Mount Ulla through sixth grade.”

Millicent remembers a school where “everybody knew each other.”

“Back in those days, it was a big farming community,” Millicent said. “You had a lot of farm kids in the class. Everything was so simple then.

One of Millicent’s best memories came out of the kitchen.

“Anyone that went to Mount Ulla will remember sitting in class and smelling the homemade yeast rolls in the cafeteria,” Millicent said.

What still stands out to her all these years later is how intimate the class was.

“Everybody knew each other,” Millicent said. “Everyone knew each other by their first name. Some teachers had taught our parents back then. I had two teachers that had taught family members.”

“I had one teacher (Josie Knox) that taught my dad and his brothers,” Millicent said.

Some things never change, though.

“It’s just like it is now,” Millicent said. “It’s small and homey out in the country.”

Millicent’s father, Perry Kerr and Jo-Ann Turner attended Mount Ulla School. Both of her husband Jimmy Hoffner’s parents went to Mount Ulla School, too.

“We’re Mount Ulla through and through,” Millicent said.

Millicent’s father graduated in 1949. Her grandfather, John Parker Turner, was in the class of 1928.

“All of us went to the old school,” Millicent said. “Parker, he is the first to go to the new school.”

“It makes me proud in this day and age where people grow up, and they move away, you don’t see many children going to the same school that their parents did. They are lucky to be in the same state. I take pride in the heritage of Mount Ulla. I never thought I would have a grandson attending Mount Ulla and be a fifth generation. I wonder what my grandfather would have thought about having a great-great-grandson going to the same school he attended.”

The current building was opened in 1994, after Parker’s father, Brandon, had already gone on to West Rowan Middle School.

Brandon graduated from West Rowan in 2000. He is the program chair at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College over the welding and machinery program.

He was the last fifth-grade class to go through the old building, finishing there in 1993.

He remembers watching a wrecking ball tear down part of the old building.

“Being a fifth grader, I probably didn’t realize the sentimental of the history of the building,” Brandon said. “We just thought it was cool seeing a big piece of machinery tearing through the walls.”

Millicent added, “Even though we changed from an old school to a new school, it’s still the same values. It’s just fresher paint on the walls.”

Brandon remembers how sound traveled through the old building.

“If the teacher left the room because a kid was misbehaving, you could tell by the walk of the teacher or the shoe they were wearing who was coming up the hall,” Brandon said. “We didn’t have central heat. We had radiator kind of heaters, making all the noises they make.”

For Brandon, dropping Parker off at school brought those memories roaring back.

He said he wondered what was going through Parker’s brain that day and if he knew the legacy he was carrying on. Only time will tell if Mount Ulla will have a sixth generation of the Hoffner family one day.