The School District of Pickens County, on Friday morning, September 26, 2025, broke ground and dedicated the Gateway to Innovation (G2i) Dr. Mendel H. Stewart Campus, a career and technical education (CTE) campus, scheduled to open in January of 2027 and to be located at the former Pickens Middle School, where Stewart served as Principal for 17 years.

Stewart, who began his education career in 1967, served as a teacher, a coach, assistant principal, principal, Director of the Career and Technology Center, District Assistant Superintendent, and, from 2000 until his retirement in 2006, District Superintendent.

While speaking with The Pickens County Chronicle the day of the dedication ceremony of the Gateway to Innovation campus named in his honor, Dr. Stewart reminisced about his time as Principal of Pickens Middle School and said that he would have never dreamed that a day like this would come.

“I came here in September of 1972 as Principal and left in September or October of 1989. I had 17 years in this school. When I started, we were growing in enrollment, and we didn’t have any portable classrooms. We had 930 kids in that building. We had classes with 25 and 35 and 40 kids, and, finally, we started getting some portable classrooms. Then, we got the building additions, and I was fortunate enough to be here to see that. It was a great opportunity. The Lord blessed me tremendously.

“I never dreamed that this day would ever come. I had a great career. I had great teachers here. They all weren’t perfect. I wasn’t perfect. But I had two good assistant Principals when I was here, Ronnie Hall, first, and then Dean Holder. You couldn’t ask for two better administrators to help you. Ronnie Hall left here and went to be Principal at Easley Junior High School, and then Dean came in as Assistant Principal. I was just blessed to be around those guys. And I had great teachers.” He recalled recently receiving a phone call from one of the former teachers at Pickens Middle School, Betty Dalton, who called to tell him about reading about him in Charles Hood’s new book, Looking for Space: My Pickens Journey. Stewart said that he told Dalton, “The thing that you’re going to be remembered for is you were a good math teacher, very creative, and the kids learned under you. You taught them math.” He recalled, “She said, ‘I appreciate that.’ I said, ‘That’s the truth. I’m telling you the truth.’

“It was a great opportunity, a great journey up here,” he said of his time at the former Pickens Middle School, the building that, in a little over a year, will house the new Gateway to Innovation campus. “Of course, I enjoyed all of my other opportunities, too,” he said. “I always tried to hire good teachers and people working with me, because I knew I wasn’t the smartest person in the world, but I wanted people around me that were. Here and at the Career Center and at the District Office, I had good people helping me. I’ll never forget that.”

A little over half a century after he first came to Pickens Middle School, 53 years to be exact, Dr. Mendel Stewart and his wife, Janice, and their family were honored by the naming of the Dr. Mendel H. Stewart Campus, dedicated on September 26, 2025. The 10 a.m. ceremony began with a welcome by Pickens County School Board Chair Randy Robinson, an invocation by Stewart’s former Pastor, the Rev. Dr. Fred Stone, and the national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner”, played by Pickens County Career and Technology Center instructor Jeremy McCollum and Ayden Chappell from Pickens High School. Speeches followed by Tim Johnson (who will be the future Director of Gateway to Innovation), School District Superintendent Dr. Danny Merck, State Representative and Pickens native Davey Hiott, and Pickens High School Student Body President Adalyn Jewell, all of whom spoke well of Stewart and the mark he has made upon the Pickens County community.

(Please note that the entire ceremony, with all of their speeches, may be heard below.)

Ground was then broken by Dr. Stewart along with Superintendent Dr. Danny Merck, future Gateway to Innovation Director Tim Johnson, representatives from Triangle Construction and Goodwyn Mills Cawood, and School Board members Betty Bagley, Brad Dover, Betty Garrison, Shannon Haskett, Vice Chair Karla Kelley, and Chair Randy Robinson.

Attendees then signed a ceremonial shovel, which will one day be on display in the former Pickens Middle School which will become the Gateway to Innovation Dr. Mendel H. Stewart campus.

View more than 40 photos by The Pickens County Chronicle from the September 26, 2025 dedication ceremony.