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Carolina Military Academy - President
Col. Leslie C. Blankinship
Bachelor’s Degree from Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, VA and named as an Outstanding Alumni in 1967
Taught and coached at Randolph-Macon Academy, Front Royal, VA
Served in the Virginia National Guard for 14 years having been on active duty for 6 years
Director of Physical Education, Y.M.C.A., Roanoke & Lynchburg, VA
General Secretary Y.M.C.A., Paris, KY and Daytona Beach, FL
President of Millersburg Military Institute - 1953 - 1962
Founder & President of Carolina Military Academy 1962 – 1969
Founder & Chairman of the Board, Vardell Hall, Red Springs, NC, 1964 and The Highlands School, Avon Park, FL, 1966
Director of the Jarvis School Agency, Atlanta, GA and then Professional Officer with the US Office of Education, DEPT of Health, Education, & Welfare, Atlanta, GA
Served as President of the National Association of Military Schools and then as Executive Director
Col Blankinship was a 32nd Degree Mason, a member of the Christian Church, Rotary Club, Civil War Round Table, Sons of the American Revolution, and Sons of the Confederacy. He was nominated by two governors of Kentucky as a Kentucky Colonel and was honored in 1967 as an outstanding alumnus of Lynchburg College.
He was married to Elizabeth Hoye and had two children: Scott & Martha Stokes
Col. Leslie C. Blankinship died October, 1973
Proclamation From City of Myrtle Beach Mayor/Cadet John Rhodes
Photograph Of Col. Blankinship cica 1940
Uniform is Randolph Macon Academy
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Randy Jennings (1963)
Excert from email from Cal Humbert
To whom it may concern
When I got out of the Army in 1961, Colonel Blankinship contacted me to go to Millersburg Military Institute in Kentucky to teach and be a tactical officer.
In December, the Colonel asked me about starting a military school in Maxton, N. C. I did not have any idea where Maxton was or what it was like. It turned out to be hot and flat.
Colonel Blankinship, Ed Dodd, and myself packed up our belongings into a moving van, and in June, 1962, we moved to Maxton to start Carolina Military academy in the old Presbyterian Junior College building. We had no faculty and no students, but with much hard work, CMA opened in September, 1962, with a full house of cadets.
The Colonel always encouraged faculty and students to do their very best. He was a true leader. He knew when to push and when to give a pat on the back. As with any good leader, he motivated all of us to do our best.
The Colonel also had a sense of humor. One of the faculty, Jess Mercer, had a mustache. The Colonel persuaded the rest of the faculty, including his wife (who was a model of decorum) to sport a penciled-in mustache. When Mercer arrived at the meeting and saw everyone with a mustache, the look on his face was priceless. He enjoyed a good laugh with the others.
Colonel Blankinship embodied all of the good things that Carolina Military Academy was about: duty, honor, and country. I am indebted to him for my success as an educator for 44 years, as he gave me my start. I learned much from my experiences under him at CMA, as did the many cadets entrusted to his guidance and leadership.
Cal Humbert
Randy Jennings (1963)
Excert from an email from Daivd McGirt
Colonel Leslie C. Blankenship
The Colonel was a formidable man. Large in statue, intellect, and energy, he was also a man of persuasion and vision. It took a master salesman's enthusiasm. leadership, and sheer bravado to enlist supporters to part with huge sums of money and personal time in support of an ideal and to encourage them to send their sons to a new school to be located a hundred miles from anywhere more significant than a county seat. It was without doubt visionary to look beyond the ghost of Carolina College and the skeleton of Presbyterian Junior College and see with clarity the reality of Carolina Military Academy.
While the eyes of this visionary could be stern, expectant, and unrelenting, they were also windows to a gentle soul that often dropped their gaze of those distant horizons to dance mischievously before the smile or the laughter hit his face.
The Colonel was special to me. He was my first real employer after my graduation from college. He was a mentor who placed me under the tutorage of his dear wife thus assuring my success and making me confident in my career path. He was accessible and approachable. and I knew him to be fair and honest in all of his dealings with me. Most of all, the Colonel surrounded me with good people who had positive and profound influences upon my life and career and with good students—exceptional human beings--some of whom I count among my best friends today.
David McGirt