Hundreds say farewell to Tusky Valley Intermediate School
An alumni of the old Bolivar School strolls the halls to say goodbye.
They came from a few blocks away and from hundreds of miles away, packing the gymnasium to say goodbye to an old school building. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say alumni from the Tusky Valley Intermediate School came together May 7 to honor a place that houses memories from days gone by.
The red brick school on Park Avenue in Bolivar was built in 1928 and originally taught students grades 1-12. Through the years, as more families moved to the area, the school district built a new section at the rear of the building, and it was used as a grade school and then an intermediate school for grades 2-4.
When the district opens its new grades 7-12 school this fall outside of Zoarville, the building in Bolivar will be used for storage. Eventually, it may face the wrecking ball, unless someone with an idea and lots of cash finds a way to save it.
The ceremony
The crowd of approximately 200 people who attended were treated to a keynote speech by Arline Mase, who graduated from Bolivar High School and whose father Arlo Archinal was one of the original school board members when schools in Fairfield, Warren, Sandy and Lawrence townships were combined to create the Tuscarawas Valley Local School District in 1956. Mase later became a teacher and the principal of the Bolivar School.
Having come from the old three-room school to the new Bolivar School, Mase recalled the day she walked into the new building. “I was just overwhelmed. I thought I’d gone to sleep and woken up in a dream that day,” she said.
Mase ended her address by asking those assembled to shout through the rafters a warm goodbye to the school she said gave her a future and fed her soul.
Additional comments were given by Dr. Derek Varansky, superintendent; Mark Murphy, former superintendent and now director of operations; and Dick Gooding, school board president.
In his speech Murphy said buildings can hold many memories. “Their value extends far beyond the brick and mortar. What we treasure in our hearts are the people, the relationships and the stories of life that occurred in these,” he said.
Andrea Clements, principal of TVIS, gave an address as shared memories of the late Fred Miller, a school principal whose family was in the audience.
Four students shared poems and memories, and the TVIS choir performed Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and Maroon 5’s “Memories.”
At the end of the program, visitors were invited to walk the halls and say their final goodbyes and to get refreshments in the cafeteria.
A few of the alumni
Russell Dean is a retired eighth-grade math, science and history teacher with the school district who started the school’s first wood shop program. If that weren’t enough, after teaching students all day, Dean would head home, eat dinner, kiss the wife and kids, and go back to work as the school’s custodian.
“I painted this gym after it was built,” Dean said. “I used 45 gallons of white paint to paint all these beams and the ceiling one summer.”
Marsha Seiniger traveled from Bethesda, Maryland; Wendy Kirkland Overlock came from Nashville, Tennessee; and Barb Austin flew in from Chicago. It was that important to share their memories and bid farewell to one of the most basic and influential parts of their childhoods.
In the end the day was about more than just remembering. It was about looking to the future. There will be no squeaky wood floors for tomorrow’s children, no scary boiler rooms or fighting over who gets to slap the chalk dust out of the erasers.
Instead, the students of Tusky Valley Local School District will enter state-of-the-art classrooms equipped with everything they need to succeed in the years to come, including walls within to create their own memories.