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Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Group fighting for school’s historic windows
DAYTON — Alumni of the old Fairview High School continue to push to have two historic stained-glass windows from the soon-to-be demolished school moved to Carillon Historical Park.
At Tuesday’s Dayton Board of Education meeting, a group of alumni asked the board to reconsider its decision to display the windows in the new Fairview PreK-8 School, slated to open in August.
The alumni want the windows to be available to the entire community, not just the students of one school, and they believe the windows would be better maintained at Carillon Park. Jeri Jones Bland of Columbus, a 1966 Fairview grad who heads Fairview Windows Preservation Inc., said more than 650 people signed their petitions, including Olympian Edwin C. Moses and baseball great Mike Schmidt.
Carillon Director Brady Kress said the windows, created by local master stained-glass artists Robert and Gertrude Metcalf, could be viewed by the park’s 150,000 annual visitors, about 40,000 of them schoolchildren from 22 counties.
They would be placed in a new addition to Carillon’s education building.
Kress said the district wouldn’t have to donate the windows but could put them on long-term loan to Dayton History, which operates Carillon Park.
The windows, recently appraised at $200,000, were commissioned by the Fairview classes of 1938 and 1945. The 1938 window is in the art deco style and includes the school motto, while the 1945 window with its depictions of combat honors the 51 Fairview alumni who were killed in World War II.
Veteran Ned Denlinger of Kettering, a 1945 Fairview graduate, said he “very strongly” opposes putting the windows in the new school, while Dayton resident Donna LaChance urged the school board to stand firm in its decision because she thinks the windows would inspire creativity in young students while showing them the importance of historic preservation.
The board did not discuss the issue Tuesday, and it’s not clear when it will come up again.
Board member Sheila Taylor said she believes the windows should be displayed at the new school because those kinds of historical artifacts add character and give students a chance to see some of their schools’ history.
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