Future looking brighter for old Atlanta school

Kevin Stingley, left, and his son Jim take a break from work on the 1936 Atlanta Grade School.
Kevin Stingley, left, and his son Jim take a break from work on the 1936 Atlanta Grade School.

Atlanta's 1936 Miller Grade school, which had been deteriorating after disuse since closing in 1974, has a smile on its front face now.

The building looks as if it may be coming back to something of its former life, and it will if Atlanta alumnus Kevin Stingley and recent volunteers and financial contributors have their way.

Stingley, now of Rusk, Texas, and a group of about 10 volunteers spent a recent Saturday cleaning up the building's interior. Stingley himself had been coming on weekends to work on the decaying building when the word got out of his individual effort and others began to volunteer.

The first task was to seal the structure from the elements. Then clean and clear up.

"We filled a Dumpster in two hours," Stingley said. "It was amazing how fast that went. The lunchroom, for example, where before you couldn't see the floor for all of the ceiling that had fallen, now you can see the original floor, and it looks good."

People are going to be surprised, he said, if the works continues. Already, the plans are in place for a roofing company to come and repair the roof-when it gets a little warmer, Stingley said.

"That'll make the building capable of being repaired," he said.

A few weeks earlier, a tree service had come in and cleaned out all the overgrown trees and vegetation that Stingley and his son Jim had been cutting on their own.

Stingley, whose father was the longtime Atlanta educator James Stingley, comes locally to see his mother, Ruby Stingley, and while here works on the building.

In Cherokee County, he is a longtime history teacher and an archaeology steward for the Texas Historical Commission with a special interest in Caddo Indian archaeology sites. He has enthusiasm for restoration of old buildings.

"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."

Stingley went on to become one of two Atlanta High School athletes to letter in four sports-football, basketball, baseball and track.

The local volunteers who turned out were led by a committee that has been formed with Jane Barnhill as president, Kevin Stingley vice president, Dennis Stanley treasurer, Judy Lanier auditor, Cyndy Vaughan Chamblee secretary and Jeanie Jackson parliamentarian.

Other members are Mary Nell Tyson, George Jackson, Bobbie Hardy, Paula Harp, Camille Dawn, Gina Clements, Margaret Fitts, John Price, Carol Price and Leigh Stanley.

The volunteer work crew included Danny Stanley, Barry Stanton, Roger Washington, Leigh Stanley, Margaret Miller-Fitts, Gina Partain Clements, Luana Taylor, Lisa Coleman Sanchez and Cyndy Vaughan.

Another workday will be held in the coming warmer months and concerned people are asked to watch the Atlanta Grade School Friends, Inc. site on Facebook. More than 160 people have already visited and favorably supported the site, Stingley said. Donations to the restoration project have been received as well, he added, making the coming roof work possible.

"I know what to do, and hopefully everyone here is waiting for a spark that they can see something is being done to preserve the building," he said.

The Atlanta Grade School closed in 1974. It was purchased in 1990 by Jane Cook Barnhill, who then was Atlanta Grade School Friends president and is now of Brenham, Texas. A restoration committee was formed in 2001 with a goal of raising $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.

 

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