Time line: Millersburg Military Institute through the years
1893: Col. C.M. Best opens Millersburg Training School. Its motto: "Right Training is Better than Riches."
1898: School is renamed Millersburg Military Institute.
1920: Founder C.M. Best resigns and sells the grounds and buildings to the Bourbon County school board. But Millersburg residents who want to keep MMI going form a corporation and buy the 1851 mansion known as Forest Hill.
1927: MMI wins the Kentucky boy's high school basketball tournament by beating London 34-25.
1931: MMI purchases the grounds of old Millersburg Female Academy and establishes a "junior" school for elementary school students. It is the only southern military academy with a separate elementary school.
1944: MMI is organized as a nonprofit institution with a perpetual charter under a board of trustees.
1966: On Feb. 9, MMI beats host St. Patrick (Maysville) 115-112 in nine overtimes. That remains the record for most overtimes in a boy's high school basketball game in Kentucky.
1971: MMI becomes the only military school in the state when Kentucky Military Institute in Jefferson County closes.
1975: The MMI junior school closes and the senior campus expands its curriculum to accommodate grades 6-12.
1978: First female cadets admitted.
1990: MMI is beset with financial problems and declining enrollment, but remains open in fall after a new board agrees to oversee assets and liabilities.
1993: As of Jan. 26, 1993, the institute's centennial year, there were 52 cadets.
1997: The board votes to change the name to Millersburg Military Academy.
1998: School begins its fall semester with 99 students.
March 2003: One week before spring break, the school closes, citing an inability to pay its staff or bills. It had 28 cadets in grades 9-12.
April 2003: The board votes to change the school name back to Millersburg Military Institute. The school reopens in the fall of 2003.
2006: The school changes its name to Forest Hill Preparatory Academy and attempts to shift from its military emphasis. But later the entire board resigns and a former trustee confirms that there is no plan to reopen the school in the fall.
2008: The institute is purchased by the United States Army Cadet Corps Inc., a private organization in Pennsylvania that is not affiliated with the Army. The organization runs military-style training programs for young people.
2011: Forest Hill Military Academy reopens as a military-style boarding school for boys and girls in grades 6-12.
March 2013: A Pendleton County woman files a civil lawsuit against the Cadet Corps alleging that her son and daughter were sexually molested in separate incidents while attending summer cadet camps in 2010 and 2012.
August 2013: A judge appoints Paris lawyer Henry Watson to conduct the business affairs of the United States Army Cadet Corps. An agreed order restrains the Cadet Corps from carrying on any business except through Watson's authority. The Corps and its former directors, officers and employees are restrained from interfering in the operation.
September 2013: A Bourbon County grand jury indicts a former employee of Forest Hill Military Academy on three counts of first-degree sexual abuse.
2014: Forest Hill Military Academy announces it will temporarily close its boarding school in December due to low enrollment. Headmaster Jay Whitehead plans to reopen but can't say whether that will be in 2015.
Sources: Herald-Leader archives; The Kentucky Encyclopedia; Kentucky High School Athletics Association
This story was originally published February 7, 2015 at 8:04 PM with the headline "Time line: Millersburg Military Institute through the years."