Hayesville competes in the Smoky Mountain Conference (SMC) and its varsity sports are: After local school teacher John Hicks was elected as the first representative from Clay County to the North Carolina General Assembly, he purchased land near Hayesville on Aug. 12, 1870, to establish a school, Hicksville Academy.

Hicksville Academy boarded students and charged tuition in a framed, two-story building.

In 1891 the school's management was turned over to Trinity College in Durham which later became Duke University.

[5] That same year its two-story wooden frame building was demolished and replaced with a new $36,000 brick schoolhouse.

[11] The brick building was the first school in the county to feature indoor plumbing and running water, which was supplied by an on-campus well.

[5] In the 1940s and 50s, traveling music groups including Lester Flat and Earl Scruggs, Carl Story, Minnie Pearl, and Hank Williams performed at Hayesville High.

In the 1950s the school added 14 acres of land (including an athletic field), a custodian's home, and a brick auditorium.

[9] In the 1980s, Hayesville High's trade and industrial classes built homes that were auctioned off by the board of education.