Friends say goodbye to old Masons Cove school
MASONS COVE – It was a day to see old friends, to share memories – and to say goodbye.
The open house at Masons Cove Elementary School was more a celebration than a funeral, but still, there were tears.
It’s the last year for the school that has been the center of the Masons Cove and Bradshaw communities since it was built in 1961. A new, $13-million Masons Cove school is nearing completion behind the old building. This summer, the familiar brick structure will be torn down. Athletic fields will take its place.
Masons Cove Elementary School second grader Ashton Fulp points out a younger photograph of herself to her mother, Robin Fulp, left, and kindergarten teacher Kathy Gross at the April 17 open house for people to say goodbye to the old school. Roanoke County Schools photo
Hundreds of former students, families and people from the community came through the afternoon of April 17 to say goodbye in their own way.
For some, like parent Robin Fulp whose five children have all been through the school, it was also a time to say goodbye to favorite teachers.
“I went because of Kathy Gross’ retirement, after almost 40 years of teaching here. She taught all five of my children. I wanted to be there for her. She’s more than a teacher to us. Students truly are her kids,” said Fulp.
The Fulp kids who all had Gross in kindergarten are Corey, now 19 and a Western Virginia Community College student; twins Emily and Lauren, 18; Macie, 11, a fourth grader and Ashton, 9, who are both students at Masons Cove.
The current Masons Cove Elementary had 256 students when it opened, according to the school’s history. Later, enrollment rose to 320 students. At first, lunches were cooked at Northside High School and brought over by truck.
Later, a cafeteria was added to Masons Cove, as well as an upper wing and more classrooms. The additional students came after Catawba Elementary School across the mountain in the community of Catawba was closed and the students transferred in 1981.
Steve Lonker was principal from 1977 to 1981, when Catawba school was closed and the rest of the students moved over to Masons Cove where the kindergarten students were already attending school. At Sunday’s gathering he recalled how Catawba residents felt they were losing their community identity.
Today there are still Masons Cove parents and students who feel they’re outsiders when the students go on to Glenvar Middle and high schools, where most of the student population knew each other from Glenvar Elementary days or Fort Lewis Elementary that also feeds the Glenvar schools.
Amazingly enough, Masons Cove is the only school in Roanoke County that still has a coal-fired furnace. The new building won’t.
It will be the first Roanoke County school built to LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – standards. It will be heated by an underground geothermal system, and use lots of natural light.
Principal Ashley McCallum explained Sunday afternoon’s open house was planned to ease the transition. “We wanted to take a moment to remember the school’s past and to look forward to a brand new future,” she said.
People clustered around old yearbooks, classroom photographs and pictures of plays, field trips and all kinds of other events. Gross took thousands of photographs over the years, and Fulp said she always made duplicate copies so children and their families could have them.
The thought of the old school being torn down isn’t for everybody.
Fulp admits having a modern school will be a good addition, and that it’s time, “but change is hard.”
“There are so many memories. My husband, Wayne, coached softball there with the girls and my son played soccer. The picnic shelter, graduations, all the memories are being taken away,” she said, with more than a touch of sadness about the building where she has had children each year except one for more than 14 years.
“Macie will enjoy going to the new school for a year but Ashton gets to enjoy it the longest,” she said. “They are looking forward to the time they will have there.”
At the open house Fulp also found out another of her kids’ teachers, Nancy Scharf, is also retiring at the end of the year. She started out teaching Fulp children in first grade, then moved up to second grade with Macie’s class.
“Between her and Kathy Gross, you couldn’t ask for more motherly teachers, ones that you don’t worry about sending your kids off to.”
Fulp recalled how, as a young mother sending her first-born off to kindergarten, she was nervous.
“Mrs. Gross called the night before kindergarten’s first day. I could tell from then on she was going to be a special teacher.”
And Fulp added, “She remembers them at Christmas time and their birthdays; they didn’t only get a teacher, but a very special friend.”
