Introducing our School Historian

Keith Hain is one of Lincoln Charter’s original staff members, a current Middle School Social Studies teacher at our Lincolnton Campus, and our newly commissioned LCS Historian. We are excited to introduce this role and look forward to monthly installments as we look back over nearly 28 years of Lincoln Charter history. 

The year is 1998. The show Dawson's Creek is birthed on the WB network, Elton John is knighted by Queen Elizabeth, the movie Titanic wins 11 Oscars, and the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? is debuting on national television.  Did you know Lincoln Charter School was also born in 1998? Would you have to use your "phone a friend" lifeline in order to answer?

     I was in my Senior Student Teaching Seminar class in the spring of 1998, my Professor mentioned to our class that they had just received information about a school opening in Lincolnton, North Carolina called Lincoln Charter. (I went to school in Buffalo, New York so that tells you how vast the recruitment was for the initial staff of LCS!) 

    In April of 1998, I made contact and , after graduation in early May, made the trip south for an interview. I was hired in early June, packed up in early July, and well...the rest is HISTORY! Here I am all these years later. 

      Our first staff met at the Lincoln Cultural Center with our founding Principal and a few founding board members. At that time there were only 10 of us on staff in contrast to today’s 200+ staff members. 

      Lincoln Charter opened its doors to students in August of 1998. We were blessed to be able to use the Sunday School classrooms at First Presbyterian Church of Stanley, North Carolina for a little over half of our 1998/1999 academic year. 

      In February of 1999, we moved to the property we currently sit upon at 133 Eagles Nest Road in Lincolnton. Lincoln Charter was indeed up and running in Lincolnton, North Carolina with approximately 100 students and 10 teachers. There was one building that sat upon the property where our pavilion currently is. 

      We were all so very excited to be in our own classrooms and students were excited to be in an environment that looked and felt a bit more like school. 

       This was our beginning and we would continue to grow into the community of learners we are today. 1998 was a year that would change the course of my life as Lincoln Charter has provided me with all of my professional "firsts": first classroom to call my own, first set of students to educate, first coaching opportunity, and more. 

    In this section of the Charter Chatter, I look forward to bringing you along with me down memory lane as we revisit the history of our school and some of our incredible moments along the way. I hope you'll find this information interesting and that maybe you'll learn a thing or two about our story and what makes us who we are today.