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Show Built In 1916 ScbmlComwg flew By ROSABELLE GWYNN and YES HARRISON CENTERVILLE -- One of Davis County's oldest, and most historical elementary schools - Centerville Elementary Elemen-tary -- will be demolished in March to make room for a new school. BUILT IN 1916 (some people peo-ple say 1918). Centerville Elementary was erected on the south side of Parrish Lane, just one block east of the Old Central Cen-tral Elementary School it was replacing. On Thursday. Feb. 23. between be-tween 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. there will be a Founder's Day celebration at the school -with a special invitation extended ex-tended to all former students, teachers, administrators and others directly connected with the school. CENTERVILLE Historical Society will have several displays dis-plays of old pictures, books and newspaper articles - some of them dating back to the early ear-ly classes, the flood of 1930. and other interesting and historical his-torical events. Also, the school PTA will continuously run a short multimedia multi-media tribute to Centerville Elementary: Our Past. Our Present. Our Promise." Commemorative Com-memorative brick certificates will be sold for $1 each, and proceeds will go toward the purchase of a new school computer. com-puter. MY, HOW times have changed. Replacing the historical Centerville Elementary School will be a new structure that will cost $1.8 million and will boast 22 classrooms, a large media center, a covered courtyard, and complete with passive solar heating. THIS SCHOOL will replace a large, square, two-story yellow yel-low brick building which has eight rooms, four on each floor, a narrow hall, concrete stairways and steam-heat radiators. For a number of years the northeast room upstairs was not finished with blackboards and desks, but was used for gymnastics during cold weather. weath-er. Some of the classrooms had two grades of students. JOHN TOLMAN was the principal of the Central School when it closed in 1915. and became be-came first principal of the old Centerville Elementary School. Since then, there have been about 18 principals with Ross Quist as the last principal. The old school remained in good condition despite its battles bat-tles with Mother Nature when the Hash Hood of 1930 took out one corner of the building - and in 1955 when a fire caused extensive damage. Following the tire, the building was extensively remodeled and enlarged. THE CURRICULUM taught in the school was that generally general-ly used throughout the district -- reading, writingand arithmetic, arithme-tic, In addition, there were classes of penmanship, geography, geog-raphy, grammar, phonics, history, art and physical education. edu-cation. Singing was taught periodically. One of the best-remembered events at the school were the early spelling matches. Children Chil-dren misspelling words had to sit on down and the last one standing was the spelling bee champion. THERE WAS a tall flag pole in front of the school and each morning the children lined up in double lines - the smartest children in front - to pledge allegience. During the winter, children used the sloping yard by the school to make long, slick ice slides. In the open fields, they would build snow forts, and when the snow was fresh and deep the field was used for fox and geese courts. During the spring and fall. haeball. racing, rac-ing, track events, marbles, jacks and jump the rope were popular games. THE BUILDING will he gone soon, but the memories will linger on. The new school drew students stu-dents from three sources: the little rock school District 14. that was maintained in North Centerville for little children who were too young to walk to the larger schools: the two-room, two-room, brick school that housed the first five grades: and the Central School that housed the sixth, seventh and eighth grades - thereby consolidating all grades and all children under one roof. CENTERVILLE Elementary Elemen-tary was one of the first schools in the state to enter a school "hot lunch" program. However, the lunches were prepared by volunteers (parents) (pa-rents) and it was an uphill battle bat-tle to provide food and find space to keep the program operational. Men built the tables and benches and mothers took turn preparing the soup, serving it and cleaning clean-ing up after. After several years, first grade students were sent to Farmington to attend school, an ironic twist to recent years when some Farmington students stu-dents attended school in Centerville. |