The Couch family, Isham and Jimibell Couch and their children, moved to Grayson from Bethesda, Georgia , in 1937. They took up residence on Sand Road and became an integral part of Grayson’s local farming community. They grew cotton for many years. Mr. and Mrs. Couch had eleven children, all of whom graduated from Gwinnett County Public Schools, giving their household the distinction of having the most GCPS grads in any one family!

When they first moved to the county, the Couch family consisted of parents, six sons, and five daughters. If he were still alive, the eldest Couch sibling would be ninety-nine years old, and the “baby” of the family is now a youthful seventy-two. Throughout the intervening years, the Couch siblings have contributed to the Grayson community as farmers, funeral home owners, telephone company employees, contractors, and entrepreneurs.

The late Roy Couch, one of four surviving Couch children and sitting president of the Grayson Alumni Association at the time of our opening, remembered the early days: “When we moved to Grayson there were no cars, no paved roads, no sewers, no fire station. It was a little farm town. The first school I attended was a four-room schoolhouse. The school went from grades one – eleven. Schools didn’t have grade twelve back then. There were 342 students in the whole school. My high school class consisted of twenty students—ten boys and ten girls.” Humble beginnings, indeed, considering the fact that we opened our doors in 2009, boasting a state of the art facility and an enrollment of over 850 students! Since our opening, our enrollment has risen to nearly 1100 students! Couch Middle School bears witness to how much life, culture, and education have changed in Gwinnett County throughout the years.

Three of the Couch siblings still lived in the area when we opened our doors, and they visited Couch Middle School often. Roy Couch voiced his family’s pride at having the Couch family name thus commemorated: “There is no greater honor than to have a building, especially a school, named after a family.”