On Sept. 28, in a theater bearing her name, friends, family, colleagues and her “young people” gathered to pay tribute to educator Beverly Barnhart.
Barnhart, who was a driving force behind Richmond County’s magnet school program and the founding principal at John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School, died Sept. 15 just 10 days after her 90th birthday.
Her students weren’t just “kids” to Barnhart, they were known as “young people,” said Aletha Snowberger, a 1994 graduate of Davidson, who serves as Richmond County’s Assistant Superintendent of Middle School Administrative Services.
“’Young people’ was a phrase that carried both affection and expectation. She saw us as not just who we were but who we would become,” said Snowberger.
Barnhart spent more than 25 years with the Richmond County School District. In the late 1970s, she was brought the concept of magnet schools into the county.
Big cities were doing it, so why not Augusta, Barnhart said in a student-produced video that played before the memorial service. Created by Wright Montgomery, the short film documented the school’s 25th anniversary in 2006.
Barnhart wrote a grant and traveled to seven or eight cities to learn about the concept. She developed surveys to find out what parents thought.
“With the board’s blessing, she developed the magnet school curriculum, hired the staff and interviewed the students for the county’s first three magnet schools,” according to a plaque hanging under portrait in the school’s lobby.
C.T. Walker Traditional Magnet School and A.R. Johnson Health Science and Engineering Magnet School opened in 1980.
“Fine arts was the most difficult to get the general community to understand,” Barnhart said in the video.
The fine arts school opened in 1981 in the rundown former John S. Davidson Elementary School building on Telfair Street. It initially opened with fifth through eighth grade pupils. Each year another grade was added until the first class of high school seniors graduated in 1986.
Snowberger said Barnhart was more than just the school’s administrative head.
“She wasn’t just running a school. She was building a community,” she said.
Community was necessary in the tight quarters of the dilapidated building.
Every inch of space was utilized in that building with students rehearsing instruments in the stair wells; tables were moved in the cafeteria before and after lunch to make room for dance classes. Students shared the space with the mourning doves who’d taken up residence on the second floor.
Despite the accommodations, the accolades began pouring in much like the rain that flooded into that building on stormy days. In only its second year of its existence, Davidson was named the top magnet school in the nation by a private research company, the documentary said.
The current campus on 12th Street started with the renovation of a single historic building. Other buildings were added, and students finally moved from Telfair Street to 12th Street in 1998. She retired in 2000.
Speakers on Sunday painted a picture of Barnhart as a woman who expected great things from her young people and believed they could achieve them. But she was also a woman who ran a tight ship and kept things under control.
Dr. Hawthorne Welcher Sr., who served as the school’s first assistant principal, said she taught him many things, but three words stood out.
Be “fair, firm and consistent. I took that with me when I became principal,” said Welcher, who later went on to serve as assistant principal or principal at schools such as Richmond Academy, Tutt Middle School and Laney High School.
Welcher’s tribute to Barnhart included spoken memories with songs such as “If I Can Help Somebody” and “Wind Beneath my Wings” interspersed.
Renee Kelly, Davidson’s current principal, was the final speaker.
Barnhart hired Kelly 26 years ago, and Kelly called Barnhart a “mentor and friend.”
“She set a vision for this school that continues to guide us today,” Kelly said.
Davidson students rounded out the program with an acapella version of “Rainbow Connection.”
Barnhart was married to Lowell Barnhart, a former coach at Augusta University, who died in June 2024. She is survived her daughters, Liz Barton, Carrie Barnhart and Dottie Wesley and granddaughter, Taylor Burkhart.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards, is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award and was named Augusta Magazine’s best local writer in 2024 and 2025. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
