1973

On September 4, 1973, Sumner Academy opened its doors for the first time.
As more and more students stretched the resources of Sumner’s public schools, William Puryear and a small group of parents hired headmaster Todd Strecker. They were concerned about the quality of education in overcrowded schools.
Sumner Academy, with an annual budget of $84,000, opened in an old house on Nashville Pike with 43 students in grades four, five and six. The following fall 120 students enrolled; almost all of them were students who otherwise would have contributed to the overcrowding situations across the county’s public schools.

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1974

In 1974 Hendersonville was growing by one house per day. Gallatin Road traffic had increased to 40,450 daily trips from 30,000 two years earlier.
With those numbers in hand, the Hendersonville Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors endorsed the construction of a bypass. The city commission agreed, as did the boards of Gallatin, Portland, Hartsville, Westmoreland, Sumner County, the Mid-Cumberland Council of Governments and the Gallatin Chamber of Commerce.
Hendersonville chamber leaders presented those endorsements to Governor Winfield Dunn on September 20, 1974. Bill Wallace, administrator of the Statewide Transportation Planning Program, unveiled his own traffic study and predicted that by 1994 the number of cars passing through Hendersonville could be 80,000. He cautioned that construction was at least five years away and completion, two years beyond that.

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1978

In mid-September 1978 local leaders broke ground on Shackle Island High School.
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Hendersonville residents had pushed for more classrooms to be built for their elementary-aged children. Portables, split shifts, and churches were used while the county commission and school board fought over funding for new buildings. The overcrowding problem was partially solved when new elementary schools opened and students moved on to secondary schools. That eventually created stress on Hendersonville’s one high school.
County officials allowed split shifts at Hendersonville High School (essentially creating two schools in one building) and discouraged students from taking classes that were unnecessary for graduation. Seniors were encouraged to graduate at Christmas if they had adequate credits.
The ground-breaking near the corner of New Shackle Island Road and Long Hollow Pike allowed the new school—later renamed Beech High School—to open in August 1979, just a few months after HHS graduated more than 600 students.

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1984

With her popularity at its height, Barbara Mandrell brought national news coverage to Hendersonville with her nearly fatal auto accident on September 11, 1984.
Mandrell, living in Cages Bend, was driving her Jaguar on Gallatin Road near Bluegrass Drive when she was struck head-on by a car driven by Mark White of Lebanon. Mandrell was taken to Hendersonville Hospital where her severe injuries caused her to fight doctors and scream at medical staff.
Hysterical, she could not tell them her name. White was dead on arrival, and police never were able to determine why his car had swerved across the road. Mandrell was transferred to Baptist Hospital, the facility she later credited in commercials for saving her life.

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1986

When investors presented their plan for Kingwood on September 2, 1986, Center Point residents objected to the impact putting 632 single-family homes, 207 condominiums, and 60,000 square feet of commercial space on 473 acres.
Developers agreed to create their own utility district, give Hendersonville land for a fire station and make improvements to Center Point Road. As plans were scaled down and the name changed to Shannon Place, developer Bob Willey sought to have the land annexed by Goodlettsville, re-igniting a 20-year feud with Hendersonville.
A judge’s ruling allowed Hendersonville‘s board of mayor and aldermen to cut the project back and pass a rezoning ordinance in January 1988. However, by then the real estate industry was suffering under the weight of 1986 tax reforms, leaving the project to be sold and resurrected later as Mansker Farms.

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1986

In late September 1986, Hendersonville voters elected a mayor for the first time in the city’s history.
Earlier that year the city’s five commissioners had fired city manager Erskine Ausbrooks by a vote of 3-2. He requested a hearing, which dragged on for 40 hours before the decision was confirmed by the same vote.
Residents, some unhappy with the situation and some wanting neighborhood representation on the city’s governing body, sought to remove the five commissioners by changing the form of city government. They gathered signatures for a referendum to abandon the original charter that allowed the five at-large commissioners to elect one of themselves as mayor and appoint the city’s top executive.
The alternative charter provided two aldermen each from six wards and an elected mayor who would be the top executive of the city and the chairman of the city’s board.
Six weeks after voting for the new charter, Hendersonville voters elected Ausbrooks their new mayor from three choices and elected 12 aldermen from 71 candidates. The 13 winners became the city’s first Board of Mayor and Aldermen.
Ausbrooks lost reelection in 1988. Never again would the city have nearly that many people run for alderman at one time.

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