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Trail: Schools & the next generation · step 1 of 3

Schools: four high schools became one

By Bedrock Desk

Schools & the next generation

1 · Short version2 · Full story (2 min)3 · Dig deeper (5 sources)

1The short version

Southern Gap High School opened Aug. 21, 2026, merging Grundy, Hurley, Council, and Twin Valley high schools into a roughly 200,000-square-foot campus for grades 8 through 12 with career and technical facilities . The consolidation is a direct result of population loss. Ripple effects are still showing up: supervisors approved $99,058.51 in October for furniture that the original plan missed when eighth graders and Council students were added (6-1, Chairman Hess opposed), and $400,000 had to cover a negative school food-service balance . Empty former school buildings, Twin Valley first, are now among the county's most usable flat land.

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2The full story

Grundy Town Center, built on land raised above the Levisa Fork after the town's flood-control project
Grundy Town Center, built on land raised above the Levisa Fork after the town's flood-control project. Credit: 22408aaron, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Flooding in downtown Grundy, 1984
Flooding in downtown Grundy, 1984. Credit: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, public domain

3Dig deeper: every source

Every bracketed number above links to its source. Here they all are in one place. If one doesn't say what we said, tell us.

  1. virginiamountaineer.com/2026/09/02/ribbon-cutting-marks-historic-opening-of-southern-gap-h
  2. cardinalnews.org/2026/09/02/as-4-rural-schools-become-1-students-embrace-their-new-shared-
  3. virginiamountaineer.com/2026/10/14/supervisors-approve-additional-funding-for-southern-gap
  4. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grundy_Town_Center.jpg
  5. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grundy_Virginia_flood_1984.jpg

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