Saving the soul of a school

As high schools are reborn in renovated or brand-new buildings, precious parts of the past are being preserved within the modern campuses to ensure that time-honored stories — and people — are never forgotten. What follows are short stories about the murals and memorials, the bricks and trees, that have earned a permanent place within the hearts of nine area high schools. The list is not exhaustive, but each story teaches an inspiring lesson: Buildings may change, but school spirit — and spirits — live on.

Eastside

Interlake

16245 N.E. 24th St., Bellevue

Opened: 1967

Construction: fall 2003 to fall 2005

The project: Demolish most structures, gut the others and condense campus into a new two-story main classroom building.

Estimated cost: $44.5 million

The new campus that opened last week may not physically resemble the one students attended for decades, but tiles and paint give two nods to the past.

Since 1987, the Saints' basketball gym has been named Flynn Court — though only a few insiders called it that — after Tom Flynn, Interlake's first basketball coach and later its athletic director. Inside the old gym, a small plaque over a door gave notice to the name. Inside the refurbished gym, a huge wall mural gives new prominence to the name.

In the floor of the old gym's foyer, a mosaic of the school crest had been laid by the classes of 1979 through 1984 in memory of wood-shop teacher Frank Olsheski. As part of the renovation, the artwork was carefully removed and reset into the new foyer, allowing students to contemplate the devotion those before them had for a favorite teacher.

Seattle

Ballard High School

1418 N.W. 65th St., Seattle

Opened: 1916

Rededicated: September 1999

The project: Four-building campus replaced with two-story structure.

Cost: $48.2 million

It was an emotional struggle, but the majority of Ballard alumni made peace with the idea of their school being razed. "The school looked old when I went there — and that was back in the '40s and '50s," said Richard "Dick" Mitchell, a 1951 graduate.

Wanting something physical to preserve memories of the old building, alumni settled on masonry. Monty Holmes, a 1949 graduate, stepped up, welding torch in hand, to help erect a new arched Ballard High School sign on the lawn facing Northwest 65th Street, using the demolished building's red bricks.

"So many former students return and ask, 'What's left of the old school?' Well, it's right out front here, something you can touch and then reminisce," Holmes said.

Garfield High School

400 23rd Ave., Seattle

Opened: 1923

Construction: summer 2006 to fall 2008

The project: Historic renovation of two buildings and demolition of remaining structures.

Estimated cost: $86.5 million

Irwin Caplan's two art teachers gave their prize student the freedom (and a ladder) to broaden his talent to a different canvas — the upper walls of their third-floor classrooms. Sixty-eight years later, Caplan's two murals — one of a circus scene and the other depicting the legend of Paul Bunyan — are largely still there.

One small section — an image of two trapeze artists, painted directly on concrete — will remain after Garfield is gutted.

Other sections, painted on plaster adhered to clay tile, must be removed because of seismic safety concerns. Painstakingly, the plaster will be chipped into 4-by-4-foot chunks that will be framed and auctioned.

Why the fuss? After graduating in 1937, Caplan grew up to become an award-winning cartoonist for Collier's magazine and the Saturday Evening Post.

Now 86, Cap, as he is known, lives in Seattle with wife Madeline. "The murals have lasted through the years, and that's a miracle," he said.

West Seattle

High School

3000 California Ave. S.W., Seattle

Opened: 1917

Rededicated: September 2002

The project: Historic renovation and new addition.

Cost: $53.2 million

A three-panel mural depicting scenes of early Seattle, painted by Seattle artist Jacob Elshin in the late 1930s, hung in the main hallway and later in a student-activity room. Defaced with graffiti, the artwork was pulled down in the early 1970s, tucked away and almost forgotten.

In 1996, a local art enthusiast was researching local works that grew out of the Depression when he learned of the Elshin paintings. But no one with the Seattle School District knew what had become of them, and district archivist Eleanor Toews made it her job to find out.

In 2000, she learned from an art teacher that somewhere in his classroom, three Elshin paintings were collecting dust. Toews found them unceremoniously crammed between two cupboards. Two years later, in a fitting ceremony, the restored mural was unveiled in the school's new library, where it still hangs.

Roosevelt

High School

1410 N.E. 66th St., Seattle

Opened: 1922

Construction: summer 2004 to fall 2006

The project: Historic renovation of 1922 main building, and new gym, cafeteria and performing-arts center.

Estimated cost: $88 million

Legend has it that the black walnut tree on the southeast side of the high school came from Theodore Roosevelt's Oyster Bay estate on Long Island, N.Y. That tree, and three or four others, will remain as Roosevelt undergoes a major rehab.

Great care also is being paid to the school's elegant main lobby, a gathering place dignified by arches, scrolls and moldings. "Depending on whether you were a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior would make a difference on where you would stand in the hall," said Pam Eshelman, a 1975 graduate and president of the Roosevelt High School Foundation board.

A school seal, inlaid on the floor and bearing the school motto, "What I am to be, I am now becoming," has been removed for construction but later will be reinstalled, as will murals depicting Native American scenes created by Paul Morgan Gustin, a prominent Seattle artist of the early 20th century.

Cleveland

High School

5511 15th Ave. S., Seattle

Opened: 1927

Construction: summer 2005 to fall 2007

The project: Partial demolition of existing building, historic renovation of the rest.

Estimated cost: $60.4 million

Cleveland's history can be told through artifacts and assorted ephemera scattered throughout the building over the past 78 years. Assembling and eventually displaying the items is a goal of Pat Coluccio, class of 1947.

From a photograph of the school's first principal to the 1937 football city-championship trophy to plaques honoring former students who went to war, "these are things that we should like to keep to remember what Cleveland High School was built on," he said.

South King County

Mount Rainier

High School

22450 19th Ave. S.,

Des Moines

Opened: 1958

Construction: June 2005 to September 2007

The project: Replace 152,000-square-foot school with new 205,000-square-foot building.

Estimated cost: $72 million

The 1995-96 school year was difficult for Mount Rainier students, as four of their peers died in separate incidents. Each is remembered on plaques within a memorial garden that also pays tribute to former students killed in Vietnam, and to Benjamin Colgan, a 1991 graduate killed in Iraq in 2003.

Over the years, Sylvie Gaillard has visited to lay a single flower at the foot of the plaque memorializing her only child, Delphine, who was killed in a car accident on Nov. 11, 1995. Engraved on the plaque is a quote in French from "Le Petit Prince," one of Delphine's favorite books. Translated, it means: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

Enrolled in the school's international baccalaureate program, Delphine, 17 at the time of the accident, viewed life through her heart. "The school was very important to Delphine," her mother said. "This is where she had her friends, all of them, since we moved two years before directly from France. This is also where she got help from dedicated teachers."

The Highline School District intends to reinstall all the memorials before the new building opens in 2007, at a spot by a pond already reserved for Delphine's plaque and those of her three classmates.

Snohomish County

Everett High School

2416 Colby Ave., Everett

Opened: 1910

Rededicated: September 1995

The project: Historic renovation of exterior walls and facade of main building.

Cost: $12 million

On its face, Everett High School means a lot to the city of Everett. The elegant, creamy-brick building on the northern edge of downtown has been a source of community pride for nearly a century. Still, the Beaux-Arts jewel had suffered blemishes over the years — none worse than a mismatched annex attached to its front like a bad zit in the early 1960s.

When it came time to bring down the annex, it was almost like an unveiling, with a sizable crowd showing up to see the beauty that had been hidden for so long.

"Most of the people who see Everett High School on a daily basis never go inside it," said Larry O'Donnell, a 1955 graduate and retired school principal and administrator who consulted in the restoration. "I think it's really important to preserve buildings like these because they give communities stability and a sense of history."

Edmonds-Woodway High School

7600 212th St. S.W., Edmonds

Opened: 1998

The project: New 1,600-student-capacity building on old Edmonds High site.

Cost: $43.2 million

The merging of Edmonds and Woodway High Schools in 1990 was peppered with controversy: Should the combined school be housed at the old Woodway building or built at the old Edmonds site? Should the new school colors incorporate the purple and gold of Edmonds and the green, orange and white of Woodway? Should the new mascot be the Tiger of Edmonds, the Warrior of Woodway, or something different?

After intense negotiation, a committee sided with Warriors, but not the meek little soldier-dude that represented Woodway. Instead, the mascot was reborn as a larger-than-life Roman gladiator. "The Woodway Warrior was genetically mutated and turned into a tough guy," Edmonds-Woodway Principal Alan Weiss said.

The mascot — a suit of armor with metal chest plate, leather boots, helmet, visor and sword — stands 6 foot 10 or so inside the Edmonds-Woodway main office, just as it had in the old Woodway building where the merged school was temporarily housed before moving into the new building.

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com