The 1936 Atlanta Grade School building on West Miller may be on its last leg, but one former student is trying to save it.
Kevin Stingley, a 1964 Atlanta High graduate now of Rusk, Texas, comes to spend weekends working on the school building he attended as a child. He's trying to defeat an old building's worst enemy, i.e., rain, by sealing windows, basement and roof.
The structure's roof is sagging. Its basement is open to ground water. Doors are ajar. Ceilings are down. But in the corner of one room, a teacher's desk looks as if it could still be used and its blackboards await chalk marks.
Some of the flooring is firm and safe to the step on for now.
Stingley comes to see his mother Ruby Stingley, and while here works on the building, sometimes with his son Jim. Last weekend, the two cut down trees whose limbs were pushing through windows and under eaves.
Kevin comes at his own expense, for one reason, he said, because the Stingley family has a long history with Atlanta schools.
His father James Stingley had come to Atlanta schools in 1960 as junior high principal and later became the county's special education director. His office at this time was in the 1936 Atlanta Grade School building. Kevin's sister, the late Alisa Stingley, also attended the school and became a journalist with the Shreveport Times newspaper for almost 30 years.
"I'm the last of the family to be able to do this, so I didn't think twice when the idea came to me to do something to help the building now," Kevin said.
Stingley has expertise in this field. He's a longtime history teacher, and at his home in Cherokee County, he is an archeology steward for the Texas Historical Commission with a special interest in Caddo Indian archeology sites. He also has served on the Cherokee County Historical Commission for 15 years.
Stingley said he comes mainly because this is where he went to school.
"I hate to see this happen to this building," he said last Saturday as he made an oh-so-small dent in preventing the destruction of a memorable site.
"I know so many people went to school here. I still remember my first-grade teacher, Annie Lou Shine, and how I got my first acquaintance with the principal's paddle when in Mrs. Pritchard's room I said I had taken my reader home with me over the weekend, and she said no, I hadn't, because she'd looked and found it in my desk."
Kevin, as exuberant as any boy, went on to become one of two Atlanta High athletes to letter in four sports-football, basketball, baseball and track. He has the personality to tackle hard tasks.
"I know what to do, and hopefully everyone there is waiting for a spark that they can see something is being done to preserve the building.
"It could be a museum. I'd like to see a replica of an old classroom here. People would love to come and see an old authentic classroom. Maybe I can provide that. It's for sure if we don't start with the roof first and preserve it, then the building's going to go down."
The Atlanta Grade School closed in 1974. It was purchased in 1990 by Jane Cook Barnhill, then-Atlanta Grade School Friends president and now of Brenham, Texas. A restoration committee was formed in 2001 with a goal of finding $1.5 million to preserve the building but has been unable to raise the money. The building received a Texas State Historical Marker in 2006.
The Atlanta Grade School Friends has a colorful website at www.atlantamillergradeschool.com. The Friends address is P.O. Box 851, Atlanta, Texas, 75551.