UW Student Fights for State's Historic Schools
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University of Wyoming graduate student Jessie Nunn
is rediscovering secondary education. But this time she plans to
spend a lot less time looking out the window and a lot more looking
in.
Nunn, a Worden, Mont., native, has spent the summer before her
master's degree graduation researching the state's historic school
buildings. Experiences like the one she had on a site study in Albin
in southeast Wyoming reinforce that her work is important to
communities throughout the state.
That day in Albin, Nunn busily wrote notes and took photos of the
historic Albin High School that closed its doors to students in 2003
and left behind a discouraged community. Soon, a maintenance man
showed up and offered her a personal tour. A few minutes later they
stumbled across another local -- the town mayor.
"The mayor was helping them do maintenance work, which is very small
town Wyoming," she chuckles. "Meeting those two and talking with
them about how significant this building was to everyone in the
community helped me realize that what I'm doing is important to
people out there."
Nunn's schools project started last fall in her historic
preservation class. At semester's end, the group gave a public
presentation and laid groundwork for the follow-up class that
lobbied the legislature to create funding for research of these
landmark structures.
"I just started doing a lot of research on historic schools and
found these great examples of schools throughout the state," she
says. "Schools are probably one of the most important parts of a
community. Everyone has some kind of connection to them and the
buildings are a physical representation of that connection."
Nunn adds that the new school construction and the planned
demolition of historic buildings has progressed quickly since the
creation of the Wyoming School Facilities Commission in 2002. This
action also transferred much of the control over school facilities
from communities into the hands of the state.
"Newer schools don't seem to have the architectural detail and
workmanship that the older buildings have, but more importantly, the
older ones link communities to their past," she says. "In the
smaller towns across the state these buildings are the architectural
landmarks of significance and to lose those schools would be a major
loss."
Many communities that have built new schools have converted the
historic buildings for "adaptive use."
"In Laramie, the Washington Square apartments are actually a school
building built in 1911. With its proximity to the UW campus, and
interesting architecture, it's turned out to be one of the more
distinctive places to live in here," she says.
A community facilities grant offered through the Wyoming Business
Council provides funding opportunities for communities converting
schools to senior housing, youth centers, or a number of other
things. Learn more by visiting
www.wyomingbusiness.org/community/txt_facilities.htm.
According to Nunn, some of the schools should be saved or modified
for adaptive use, but stresses that students need access to new
technologies and architectural advancement. She adds that the older
buildings often can be successfully renovated into top-notch school
facilities.
"Obviously, we all agree that children should have equal opportunity
to the best facilities, but the current standards used by the School
Facilities Commission make no mention of historic or community
importance. That's definitely something we'd like to see changed,"
she explains.
Although the proposed legislation failed last spring, Nunn says
historic schools did score two modest victories during the
legislative session.
"A senator we hadn't been working with proposed a bill that passed
requiring a public hearing be held if the school district plans to
abandon or demolish a building. The education committee also agreed
to conduct an interim study on historic schools and the issues we
raised," Nunn says.
For now, Nunn and her supervisor, American Studies Research
Scientist Mary Humstone, are organizing a volunteer statewide survey
of the state's historical school buildings.
"We have a database of 230 schools and obviously not all of them are
worthy of our efforts. We're trying to identify the schools that are
worthy and find people in the community that are supportive," she
says.
Nunn, Humstone and additional American studies students plan to
pursue legislation supporting preservation over replacement or
demolition of the state's historic school structures. Volunteers for
the schools survey would be asked to write down building
characteristics and take photos. The information and photos gathered
will be included in the final database.
Contact Nunn at jnunn@uwyo.edu
or Humstone at (307) 766-4600 or
humstone@uwyo.edu to learn how to get involved.