OGDEN — As the moments before the opening of school trickled down to a feeble few yesterday morning, there was a noticeable calm around the halls and in the classrooms of Edison-Lincoln Elementary School. The frenzy, if there was any, was controlled. The loudest noise was the sound of the lawnmower outside, cutting the grass.
What a difference a school year makes.
Remember a year ago? Remember the arson fire set at the former Lincoln Elementary that burned the 31-year-old building to the ground in what seemed like seconds? It was Sunday, Aug. 26, three days before the start of the 2001-2002 school year. Suddenly, nearly 400 Lincoln Lynxes had nowhere to sit.
That's when nearby Edison School swung into refugee mode, welcoming the Lincoln kids with open arms, wide smiles . . . and thinly disguised hysteria. Where are we going to put everybody?!
Well, here it is, a year later, another Opening Day, and the scene at Edison School is a testament to what happens when one school burns down and the school next door squishes over to make room — and the rest of the world hears about it.
There are a dozen new portable classrooms on the southwest side of the permanent brick building, there's a portable restroom in the middle of these dozen new classrooms, there are two playgrounds, one on each side of the school, and everywhere you look there are school-type furnishings.
As Kathy Thornburg, the Lincoln principal, surveys the scene, she can't help but beam.
"Everyone," she says, "has just been amazing."
It would take a lot more room than this one newspaper column to list all the items and all the people and corporations that have contributed to the success and well-being of Edison-Lincoln this past year, but the condensed version is this: nearly $70,000 in cash donations have poured in, along with just about every other school necessity you can think of, including food, posters, teaching supplies, desks, furniture, cushions, electronic gear, and so many computers that they had to start sending some to other schools.
"Our kids know how to write thank-you cards," says Principal Thornburg. "Every single thing that has come in, they've written a thank-you."
The doubling-up on the Edison campus will last another full school year, at which point the Lincoln kids get to go home. Construction of a new $6 million school is well under way at the site where the old building burned down (the person or persons who set that fire have not been apprehended). The completion date for Lincoln II is set for sometime next spring or summer.
At that point, the trailer classrooms that make up the "Lincoln Village" on the Edison lawn will be lifted onto trucks and moved elsewhere.
It's a day to look forward to for Principal Thornburg and the entire Lincoln staff and student body. A year from now, moving out of trailers and into a $6 million building with all the latest equipment will be quite the luxury.
But there's already a sense of dread about having to leave Edison.
"They have been so kind and helpful; they've really gone out of their way," says Ms. Thornburg. "And the kids, and the teachers, have made friendships they would never have otherwise made. It's really been a wonderful thing."
Not the fire, but the aftermath.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.