Let’s Find a Match for a Charming 100-Year-Old

I don’t want to let 2023 end without mentioning a local fixture who turned 100 years old this year.

And she needs some help. The elegant old La Grange high school building facing Travis St. – I think – is one of the most beautiful buildings in town.

There’s the red brick, the ornate clay roof tiles and the design that includes a courtyard surrounded on three sides.

It was built in 1923, dedicated in 1924, and thousands of students over the years attended classes in the building, myself included.

My freshmen and sophomore years were spent in that old building – which was so convenient for walking over to Sonic or Mayer’s Dairy Mart during lunch. From the second floor classrooms you could get a great view of La Grange – and watch upperclassmen smoke alongside beefhead ditch between classes.

My junior and senior years we moved into the “new” high school on Eblin Street. The new campus was great but I did sort of miss the old high school.

For a while the old high school building served as the middle school, but for the past 10 years it’s stood empty as newer and newer facilities have been built.

10 years ago– this week, in fact – the building was vacated and a ceremonial move of La Grange Middle School was conducted.

Here’s how we described the event in the Dec. 20, 2013 issue of the newspaper: “hundreds of La Grange seventh and eighth graders and their teachers, with a police escort, made the fiveblock walk as a group from their old campus to their new, multimillion- dollar facility, which sits just west of the high school. The new middle school will formally open for classes when the kids come back from Christmas Break, Jan. 7.”

Now La Grange has a sparkling new elementary campus as well that has beautifully integrated old and new buildings – with one exception.

That old high school building has been left out of the plans. It’s the best looking storage unit in Fayette County – and little more.

Years ago, locals voted overwhelmingly to preserve the building (instead of demolish it) for some yet-to-be-determined future use.

I asked LGISD Superintendent Andy McHazlett earlier this year if the school had any plans for the old building, and he said they did not – and that it would be costly to return the building to a useful purpose.

But now that the building has hit the century mark, it’s more than time for the school to find a way to reuse it’s most beautiful building.

Maybe the fact that it is 100 years old might open up some grant opportunities for a remodel?

I think back to covering the grand re-opening of Fayetteville ISD’s old red brick school building last year.

That building, too, had stood empty for far too long, but with the right vision it was turned into an amazing administration building and library that so well preserves, and uses, the historic structure.

I think La Grange’s old high school building could be a great administration building for the school (and maybe they could sell the current administration building on North Monroe to help pay for the work?).

Another benefit of that plan would be getting the central administration folks back on the campus, which I think would be a great thing for our students.

We’ve got a great collection of administrators across town from school on North Monroe and the more they can interact with the students the better. As a father of three current LGISD students, and one recent grad, I know that our central administration folks make a great effort to get on the school campuses as much as possible.

But if their offices were actually on the elementary campus, I can only think that face time with students will increase.

And the building is big enough to house more than just the central administration – maybe a school history museum/archives of some sort?

I was already writing this column when the Tuesday timecapsule email popped up with the newspaper editions from 10 years ago (if you have email access and not already taking advantage of this free feature you should, it’s a great dose of recent local history. Call our office to learn how).

Anyway, 10 years ago right next to the story about the Middle School move, we had a front page story about the future of the old high school building.

Former superintendent Randy Albers was quoted in that story saying: “I’ve had a lot of questions in the last month from people in the community asking what are you going to do with that building,” Albers said. “Long-term it could be the school administration building, but that would be long after I’m gone.”

Since then, the building that LGISD used to use before moving into the new building in 1924, the Casino Hall, has been beautifully renovated. That building dates back to 1881.

It’s long past time for the old high school building, which I think is an even more architecturally striking building than the Casino Hall, to play host to its next chapter too.

“We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us.” – Winston Churchill