W.B. Wicker Elementary School is one of the oldest educational institutions in Lee County and its namesake, William Bartelle Wicker, the first principal of the school, was the driving force behind ensuring that African American students in Lee County had access to a quality education during the Jim Crow Era and segregation.
Opened as Lee County Training School in 1927, W.B. Wicker served as Sanford and Lee County’s African American high school until it was decommissioned as a high school in 1969. Through a passion to reach young people who otherwise would not receive an education, W.B. Wicker worked to grow the school during a more than 40 year career. During its peak, W.B. Wicker School graduated more than 100 students annually. In 1954, the school was named after its first principal due to his visionary leadership and the sense of pride and culture he developed within the school community.
Originally funded by the Rosenwald Fund, a project conceived by legendary black educator and leader Booker T. Washington in the 1910s, W.B. Wicker’s campus joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. Wicker worked with local African American builder and business leader Arnold Lincoln (A.L.) Boykin constructed the one story brick building in the Rosemont-McIver Park neighborhood.
W.B. Wicker’s campus continued to serve grade school students until the 1980’s when the campus was closed to students. The campus was purchased in 2001 by Brick Capital Community Development Corporation (CDC) and the group worked with Lee County, the City of Sanford and a local community advisory group to restore the school.
In 2006 the revitalized campus became the W.B. Wicker Business Campus and housed Central Carolina Community College’s Lifelong Learning Center, a four-star childcare center and the Sanford Business Suites.
In 2018, Lee County purchased the W.B. Wicker School from Brick Capital CDC and returned the ownership of the property to the Lee County Board of Education. This transaction started the process that turned the campus into a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) school, focusing on serving kindergarten through fifth grade students.