For Sale

Maybe, just maybe, whatever developer gets this property will retain some of these buildings. 

Granite High School

The Thematic Photographic theme for this week is “In rough shape”.  Yesterday, Carmi posted this about a mill in his town that has been empty for 20 years.  I immediately thought about the high school I taught at that has been vacant for four years, and is currently for sale.

I went down there today for the fireworks show that marks the end of the South Salt Lake Freedom Festival.  They don’t want to compete with the Sugarhouse Park fireworks, so they always have them the day before.

Since the property is back in the hands of Granite School District, my principal and our old head custodian were there supervising, so we got a chance to go back into the building and see how it’s faring, reminisce a little bit and (of course) get some pictures.

As we entered the building, in the stairwell, I was struck by the debris that was on the floor, left there because there was no one to clean it up after it blew in under the outside door.

I’m not sure why they decided to wrap the toilet in the principal’s bathroom in a garbage bag, but they did.

Stains on the carpet in the principal’s office.

The pay phone in the main hall is gone, nothing but this little box to remind us that it was even there.

They were going to sand and refinish the hardwood floors in my math classroom.  The marks I put down for placement of the desks were still there.

Water damage on the floor in my computer room.

They even took out the towel dispenser in the storage room off my old computer room.

The “G” on the front lawn.  It was a bright red when we left in 2009.

Water damage on the floor in “Sardine Hall”.  The thinnest hall in the building, right by the computer labs, it got a decent amount of traffic.

Severe water damage in the Auditorium (built in the 40’s) caused the walls to crumble, exposing the asbestos insulation.

The date was still hanging on my board, showing the last day Granite High School held classes.  Opened in 1906, it was the second high school in the Salt Lake Valley.  The flagship school and the for which the Granite School District was named.

For the students I met down there today, and anyone else interested in seeing the other pictures I took, here is the gallery.

Did someone say “Car Show”?

I got this text message from Mrs. Gearhead this morning;

Just an fyi, there is a car show at granite high today :) let me know if you need directions.

My response was “thanks, smartass”, since I taught at that school for three years until they closed it down just a couple years ago. (If I need directions).

So, of course I went, and even ran into a group of ex-students that I taught there.

One of them had entered his old Desoto in the show.

On either side of his Desoto were his parent’s his-n-hers 65 Ford LTD convertibles.

I got there in time to see this 71 LTD convertible drive off, and drool a little bit.

Of course there were cars other than LTDs, like this Mercury Comet with matching target finders on each fender.

The mayor of South Salt Lake (or I should say her 6 year old son) chose this Dodge Super-Bee for the “Mayor’s Choice” award.

I stuck around for a while and the ex-students and I reminisced over old times.  They had been in my class when I taught at the Junior High close by, and then joined me again when they came to the High School, so we had a lot of good times to go over.   These five windows on the main floor were my classroom windows.

Well, you know I never miss a good car show, or even a bad one, that I don’t absolutely have to miss.  It was a fun day, looking at cars and catching up on what some now grown up (well, 18 yrs old) ex students are up to.

..and bats in the belfry.

.... Did you know that Granite High has ghosts?  Considering that parts of the building are damn near a hundred years old, I wasn't surpirsed when I first heard the rumors.  With all the students and faculty that went through there, there's no doubt the place is filled with psychological ghosts and moral skeletons in the closets.  But real live ghosts? I went to lunch with the principal and counselor from that last year, and found out that some para-normal group wanted to rent the building overnight so they could attempt to contact the ghosts.  No, I'm serious.  It wasn't for a halloween gag or some sort of fraternity initiation.  They were real live ghost busters.  The principal had to say no, mainly because since the closing they have stopped new rentals until they know what is going to happen to the building.  Which we, the general public at least, still don't know.

.... So, the haunted thing in mind I made this up and sent it to a bunch of the teachers that used to work there, through district mail.

.... I talked to the principal today and she said it made her day.  Yeah, I think I'm gonna keep this going, I even got a new email for it: graniteghosts@gmail.com.  Fun stuff ahead.

Oh, and if someone from Granite reads this, shhhhhhhhh, mum's the word.

This is it.

.... I worked my last day at Granite High. I wasn't even supposed to work, but the district planned this big Open House there tonight, before the South Salt Lake did their fireworks display from the football field, as usual. So the principal called me earlier this week to see if I would be willing to work, patrolling halls or helping out selling memorabilia. I ended up selling the "Farmer Forever" Granite High t-shirts. From 2 to 8 tonight I sold over 900 t-shirts. It was insane. The halls were more packed than when school was in session, but I guess that's what you get when you close a school that has been open for 103 years.
.... Not only did I get paid at my regular rate, but we also got VIP seating for the fireworks. Which meant that we were directly under the fireworks when they went off. It was pretty cool, you could feel the explosions on your body. One of the drawbacks - falling debris. Nothing that was burning hit anyone, and mostly they were ashes or smaller than a dime. But we did have one firey misfire crash into the lawn about 10 yards away from us. Yeah, fun stuff.

For whom the bell tolls.....

At about 7:45 this evening Granite High's vice principal rang the bell signaling the end of the graduation ceremony. Thus endeth Granite High School.

The last 2 years we have held the ceremonies outside on the football field, and since we wanted to this one last time we spent the day watching the weather to see if it was going to rain, it was cloudy and threatening wetness from the very beginnning. Around 3:00 the principal, two other teachers and I went to the National Weather Service web site and checked out the most current conditions. Huge cell of rain to the west, another huge cell to the north and a bit to the east. Nothing over us and nothing to the south. And it looked like the weather was working northward. Good, but things can quickly change from south to north, so we kind of asked God to keep our ceremony dry. Well, God's got a sense of humor because it was dry as a bone. But as the principal mentioned in her speech (ad libbed) we forgot to mention wind. And there was a lot of wind. Blew down the flowers. Knocked over the flags. All fixed before the ceremony, but what we couldn't fix was the caps being blown off, the book of speeched being blown page to page, every speaker lost their place at at least one point in their speech. But nonetheless, it went off great. And I'm exausted.

This is it....

The final day of 103 years of Granite High School, the second high school in the Salt Lake Valley. Channel 2 news has us closed down already, I just saw on their newscast that we closed our doors yesterday. Hmmm, maybe I should believe them and not go in today. Yeah. My principal would kill me.

Anyhoo, as of 11:30 today I will no longer be a high school teacher, I will rejoin the ranks of the junior high teacher. Which is ok with me, since at any other high school in my district teachers have a crapload of after school activities that they are all responsible for. Coach this, that club, dances, concerts and plays, oh my! Bleah! So, chapter 4 of my teaching career comes to a close, and chapter 5 starts Monday morning at 9am when all the math teachers from the elementary schools, junior highs meet with the math teachers from the high school we all feed into. It's called Vertical Teaming, and helps coordinate the skills students learn from one level to the next. I did this in chapter 2 of my career with the junior high and high school math teachers out in Magna.

I expect it will be an interesting day today. I'll let you know.

Should always have a camera on the seat next to me.

Adele and I were going to get together for a Voyager-a-thon today, and since I had brought my computer projector back to school I decided to go down there and get it. I'm at the intersection at 7th East right off the freeway waiting for the light to turn when I notice the power poles across the street swaying. Since there was a storm coming in (supposedly) I thought that it had some mighty winds. Until I noticed the R&B Engineering truck trying to get out of the construction area under the bridge had backed up into the guy wire to one of the poles. Engineers, maybe, Rocket Scientists they're not. That was the first time today I wished I'd had my camera on the passenger seat.

When I got to the school and nobody was there, I realized that even though the custodians work all summer, they do get the 24th off. Bummer, so much for Voyagerizing. What I do see is some guy digging in the lawn out in front of the school. He had a metal detector with him and was sweeping the lawn, digging wherever he ran into something. As you can see I did get some pictures, but only because I was parked and could get in the back of the car. Figuring that the custodians wouldn't like coming back to their lawn all dug up, I called the Granite Police and told them what was going on and that I didn't know if they wanted to do anything about it or not, but just wanted them to know. I think they agreed with me that it wasn't a great idea having people dig at the lawns 'cause, well, they said "We don't want that going on". Part of me wanted to hang out there to watch when they showed up, but Adele was waiting for me (we went to Ogden instead), so I left.

Later this evening I was on my way to Dan & Rae's house to play cards and as I'm driving down 15th East I notice this big soap bubble floating down the middle of the street. It was at least a foot across and lasted long enough for the big truck in front of me to slow down and drive around it. At least a full minute from the first time I saw it until it burst about 3 feet from the front of my car. I gotta keep my camera on the front seat of my car, that would have made an awesome picture.