As Lincoln Junior High School prepares to move into its new building next year, students and staff are taking time to preserve some of the current building’s history. Later this month, former students, teachers, and the rest of the community will have the chance to visit the current Lincoln Junior High during its final year of operations.
A Community Day event will be held Wednesday, November 20 from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Some of the visitors will actually get to take a piece of the school home with them, according to Principal Reid Gault.
“When they come into the building, we’ll have them fill out a card and we’re going to have door prizes, and they will get planks from the original Centennial gym floor,” Gault said in a video presented to the Plymouth School Board Tuesday. Students in the National Junior Honor Society helped clean the planks, and high school students are engraving each of them with the year of the gym’s dedication, 1937, along with the year of its planned demolition in 2020.
The video also highlighted a three-year legacy project being undertaken by students in the Innovation Academy at Lincoln. A blueberry sculpture honoring the old building will be installed in front of the new one.
Facilitator Rachel Anders said students began doing research during the 2017-2018 school year, and last year, students organized fundraising efforts to buy the blueberry. Now, Art Teacher Megan Wiesenberg is working with students to help finalize the design. Plans call for it to include a QR code linking to a virtual time capsule to show future generations what life was like for a student in 2019.
While much of the current Lincoln Junior High School is set to be demolished once the new building opens next year, the original 1926 section will be retained and renovated.
