~ Staff photo by Heather Bryant |
NINETY-YEAR-OLD CHALKBOARD UNCOVERED
~ Staff photo by Heather Bryant |
| Ray Harding, vice president of the Lee
School Association, points to names on an old chalkboard discovered Tuesday at the building. The chalkboard was enclosed behind a ventilation shaft for 90 years. |
| By HEATHER BRYANT P-I Staff Writer Hidden for 90 years, a piece of local history has been uncovered at the Lee School building. An old slate chalkboard was discovered Tuesday at the school building, stuck behind a ventilation shaft at the building. The blackboard was revealed after the shaft was uncovered in an upstairs classroom during the installation of a new heating and cooling unit. Ray Harding, vice president of the Lee School Association, said he saw the chalkboard when he came to check the room for leaks after it had rained. The chalkboard still has writing on it, which Harding believes is a list of names for a school meal or trip. |
"Who'd have thought the lunch list would still be here ninety years later," he said. "I think they were probably preparing for a picnic."He asked Heather Bailey, director of the Paris-Henry County Heritage Center, to help him decipher the 90-year-old message written in chalk. Harding referenced a student roster for the school prepared by the Paris-Henry County Retired Teachers Association. In 1915, the school was for grades 1-6. "This
was my fourth-grade room in 1947," said Harding: "I'm always looking for clues
about the building. It just gives you kind of a connection with all the people who've gone
through this school." |
He said the chalkboard is plastered to the
Wall, and if it was removed it would crumble into pieces. He plans to cover the chalkboard with a protective covering and attach a note explaining when it was found, just in case someone else discovers it again in another 90 years. The new heating and cooling unit will be installed soon and a wall will cover the blackboard again. Ms. Bailey said no one can be sure if the writing was left on the blackboard on purpose when it was covered up. "If you're going to be covering it up, why make it clean and spic and span?" she said. However, she said it is possible the writing may have been left so it would be found. "Lee School itself is a constant piece of discovery," she said. "There are so many mysteries in that building." |
| Here are the words and names as they were
written on the board, with the names Harding found in the roster and the last year that student was enrolled at Lee School in brackets. A series of hyphens indicates areas that were smudged on the board.
|
Reprinted from:
THE PARIS
POST-INTELLIGENCER
JANUARY 13, 2006 EDITION
Used by Permission
