Augusta Military Academy

This place is on private property. Listing for informational purposes only. Please do not visit without express permission from the land owner. The Augusta Military Academy was a secondary education military academy in Fort Defiance, Augusta County, Virginia, USA.  An episode of MTV's Fear was shot at the Augusta Military Academy. It was featured on Season 1, Episode 4 and was renamed "Hopkins Military Academy." This was mainly to protect the academy from local teenagers, ghost hunters and urban explorers. According to the MTV series, a man named Captain Alfredo Cochran was hired to Augusta as a science teacher in 1950, and within several years was promoted to Headmaster of the Academy. A charismatic teacher, he commanded great loyalty from the students, particularly from the upperclassmen. Senior cadets who proved to have strength, loyalty and above all discretion were hand-selected by Cochran to become the members of a secret society known throughout the academy as "The Ranks." This elite cadre received special privileges from Cochran in exchange for carrying out his personal agenda and enforcing his personal motto: "LOYALTY, OBEDIENCE, SILENCE." The Ranks quickly became the unspoken "law" of the academy, severely punishing any cadets who attempted to cross them or Cochran. They also perfected their own form of violent, and often ritualistic hazing. "Hazing" is the practice of older students intimidating, humiliating and often physically punishing younger students as a rite of passage. The violent hazing often resulted in the deaths of unfortunate cadets. Over the years there were reports of suicides, hangings, beatings and many gruesome injuries seeming to result from a variety of sexually deviant acts. Over the years as the reputation of Hopkins declined, the Academy became known as a place for troubled boys. The school became the last resort for delinquents, and soon Hopkins was filled with the worst of the worst. The final blow to the integrity of the Academy came when it was discovered that Cochran had been manipulating the cadets into taking part in bizarre, sexually explicit satanic rituals. This came to light when students started coming forward in the early 80's accusing Cochran of mental, physical and sexual abuse. When authorities searched his living quarters in the main tower of the barracks, they discovered unidentified bloodstains, a table shaped like a pentagram, and corpses of animals--presumably to be used in sacrificial rituals. Rather than face dismissal from the school, Cochran shot himself in his living quarters. The official history of Augusta Military School, however, is much tamer. The school was established in 1865 by Confederate Veteran Charles Roller as the Augusta Male Academy and formally became a military academy in 1880. It combined classical studies with a military curriculum and was officially named Augusta Military Academy in 1890. At the time, it was one of the first military preparatory schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It was among one of the first such schools in the United States to adopt the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program in 1919.  Until its closure in 1984, the Academy had attracted over 7,000 students from the United States and abroad. Today it is owned and operated as a campground for the Virginia District of the United Pentecostal Church International. It is located on U.S. Route 11, also known as the Lee Highway. The Main Barracks was built in 1915, and is a three-story, rectangular structure constructed of rough stuccoed walls above a limestone-faced first story in the tower. It features an off-center, four-story entrance tower. The Mess Hall/Library/Deanes Castle Dormitory was built in 1879 as the residence for founder Charles Summerville Roller. It is a the two-story, double-pile, frame building sheathed in German siding and covered by a hipped, slate shingle roof. The neo-Gothic style Gymnasium/Academic Hall consists of three sections: the original gymnasium built in 1910 and the present Gymnasium built in 1929, connected by a swimming pool.  Each year, the Augusta Military Academy Museum hosts an alumni gathering. Among its notable alumni are William H. Armstrong, the author of Sounder, and the Louisiana educator C.E. Byrd.