Muhlenberg County Kentucky
Schools
No dismissing classes: Greenville school building may be razed, but memories linger
Greenville - After more than 50 years of service, the old Greenville High School will be torn down this spring.
School officials said the site will be leveled and the hill on College Street turned into a playground fro elementary school students here.
Few of the school's 900 students will remember the building in its prime. Classes were moved to an adjacent school building that was opened 1976.
But for hundreds of Greenville residents and teachers, the old school building is filled with memories of the first prom, the last basketball game and the eternal images of youth.
“I'll gate to see it torn down,” said Ernest Adkins, principal of the elementary school.
“I was principal there for 14 years and taught science there for 10 years before that and went to high school there two years before that,” he said.
But Adkins said, “I'd rather see it pulled down than left to fall down.”
He said the condition of the building's 14 classrooms deteriorated rapidly since it was closed.
And because Greenville's elementary school is attached to the old building, it's dangerous to allow the building to stand vacant, he said.
“The board will probably take bids on the demolition at its next meeting, Feb. 14,” Jones [sic] said. “We're hoping we can find someone who will take it down as soon as school is out this spring.”
Demolition of the old high school cannot begin until the grad school children are dismissed for the summer, he said.
Virginia Pannell, who attended the school and later taught there, feels the old school is a landmark, however.
Miss Pannell's father was on the board of education that built the school in 1923, and she graduated there shortly before the Great Depression began. “And I taught at the high school for 36 years,” she said.
She has written a short history of the school, and her files have helped scholars write histories of the school (including a masters thesis written in 1965 by John Lovell, now an officer at the Greenville bank.)
“There are so many things that are important. A lot of people will remember its first principal. V. M. Moseley. He was the grand old man of GHS,” she said.
Other people will remember the “contest plays” held at the school for years.
Freshman and seniors would team up against juniors and sophomores in producing plays. “The whole school, in fact the whole town, got involved,” Miss Pannell said.
Athletics were always important, but academics were too, she said.
According to school records, Greenville's first school was built in 1810. By the end of the century the city had elementary schools, and three colleges: the Greenville Male Academy, the Greenville Female Academy and the Greenville Ladies' College and College for Young Men.
This last stood on the hill enar East Main Cross Street, where the old High School was later built.
The city bought the land and three buildings in 1897, and by 1910 had opened the first four-year high school.
The graduating class that year had four seniors.
The building served until Nov. 21, 1923, when fire destroyed it.
“We all went to watch the fire…when it got to the chemistry labs it was just beautiful. The flames got to the chemicals and burned in so many different colors.”
“I remember being excited because I though we wouldn't have school,” Miss Pannell said. She was in the seventh grade at the time. “But, you knwo, we didn't miss a single day.”
Churches, the courthouse and businesses served as classrooms.
The structure was rebuilt the next year. A gym was added in 1936, and additional classrooms and offices were built in 1954.
School officials said that new uses were considered for the building when the new elementary school opened in 1976 but that nothing could be found.
“They thought about a senior citizens center, and I wanted it to be made into a museum or something.
“But with the economy…I don't think the money was there,” Miss Pannell said.
Source: Smith, Mason. “No dismissing classes: Greenville school building may be razed, but memories linger.” Messenger-Inquirer [Owensboro, KY], Region, p. 1B.
Updated July 24, 2022