Current students and teachers, along with hundreds of alumni, took a trip down memory lane Sunday afternoon at Enota Elementary School in Gainesville.
The current school building, which opened in 1954, is coming down this summer to make way for a state-of-the-art educational facility, set to open in time for the 2018-19 school year.
Most of those in attendance agreed - the visit was bittersweet.
""It's sorta sad," said Gainesville Mayor Danny Dunagan, who attended Enota from the 2nd to the 6th grade. "Lot of good memories here and a lot of good friends that I'm seeing today that I haven't seen in many years, so that's been fun."
Jeff Pierce, an Enota student from 1969 to 1974, attended the final walk-through event with his daughter McKinney, who was an Enota student from 2002 to 2004. While he said it was sad to see the old building go, he laughed at some of the fun memories from his elementary school years at Enota.
"We watched a horse run through the playground one day - we thought that was great. It had gotten loose up at the corner of Park Hill out of that fence and we had a great time watching them trying to catch the horse on the playground," Pierce said with a laugh.
When the current school year ends in a few weeks, demolition on the old building will begin. Enota students will share a campus with Centennial Elementary students while the new Enota is under construction for the next 12-16 months.
DeAnn Sams, the assistant principal at Enota, is familiar with the process of moving one school to another, since she was teaching at Fair Street School when that new facility was built. She said she doesn't anticipate any major problems with sharing a campus next school year.
Still, she said, the logistics are only half of the issue. She agrees with others that the emotions of seeing the old school torn down are more difficult to deal with.
"There are a lot of emotions behind it. I went to school here, my kids have gone to school here, my daughter will be part of the new school when we come back...part of this is my history, as well, and I hate to see it go. It still has a lot of character," said Sams.
She acknowledged that the school building is unhealthy and a bit unsafe at its age, so tearing it down is the right thing to do.
"It is sad, but knowing what the future holds for our school and for our students with a state-of-the-art school, I'm just thrilled that I get to be part of that."
