Lizzie Hitchcock Cole Endowed Scholarship

This endowed scholarship was established by Carolyn McCollum in memory and honor of her mother, Lizzie Hitchcock Cole. Lizzie Hitchcock left the Walnut Grove Community on Dry Creek in Hardin County, Tennessee, to live with an older brother in north Florence so she could attend Florence State Normal School in the late 1910’s. Her parents were born during the American Civil War. Although education was minimal in the south at that time, Lizzie’s well-educated mother taught her children to read using the Holy Bible even before they attended a nearby one-room school. Mrs. McCollum remembers well her mother recalling to her how she would walk down a dusty, unpaved Wood Avenue to take classes in Wesleyan Hall from professors she long held in reverence.
Twenty-five years after marrying Mr. Roy Cole, Lizzie returned to campus where she completed her bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 1951. She taught fifth grade students at Gilbert and at Harlan schools in Florence until she retired in 1963, the year she designed the official flag for the City of Florence. Well-respected as a teacher, Mrs. Cole was also a housewife, mother, and Sunday school teacher.
Recipients of this scholarship shall have met the requirements for admission to the Teacher Education program and declared Elementary Education as their major.