Collapsed gym was a ‘special place’

Published 5:52 am Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Brian Kissell, the principal of Highland Magnet at Kenwood School, is spending more time answering emails these days.

When heavy snow collapsed the gym’s roof early Jan. 12, Kissell’s school lost a focal point for students, teachers and parents: The gym was a stage, a dance hall, a place for PE activities, a music room and a community gathering place. Later that day, Bend-La Pine Schools decided to demolish the gym because it was unsafe.

Since then, Kissell has received a stream of emails offering condolences, comfort and recollections.

“Basically, it’s almost like we lost a person,” said Kissell , who is in his second year as the school’s principal.

Kissell, his faculty, district staff and parents are thankful no one was inside the gym when the roof caved in. Still, losing the building has been an emotional affair.

“I’ve had a lot of people reach out,” Kissell said Thursday. He doesn’t usually devote so much time to email, but every message has been so heartfelt, he feels all of them deserve a reply. Kissell called the wave of love and support a “tsunami that continues to grow.”

Encouragement has come in other forms, too. One family, which included a former student who attended in the late 1940s, sent “a beautiful card and a barrel of roses,” Kissell said.

Students at the elementary have been making cards for Kissell, all while experiencing their own grief.

A teacher overheard a group of fifth-graders lament how they had lost a space that traditionally housed a right of passage. “Where will we graduate?” they said, looking to each other.

Overall though, the students appear resilient.

“For the most part the kids take it in stride,” Kissell said, adding that staffers have answered children’s questions about what happened in a direct manner and quickly quashed rumors that the gym was occupied when the roof caved in. In the meantime, Kissell said he has been leaning on district staff for guidance.

“This wasn’t exactly in the guide,” he said.

Kissell’s own daughter, a fourth-grader at the school, has “been a little trooper” about the ordeal, he said. Her one wish: That she could have played basketball in the gym with just her dad.

Highland’s gym was arguably dearer to its students, staff and families than the average elementary gym. Beyond hosting PE in cold months, the old gym was used for monthly assemblies, housed the school’s music room and provided a space large enough for classes to act out stories related to their curriculum. Highland, a magnet school, uses the Scottish Storyline Method, a way of teaching that encourages students to ask questions and guide lessons themselves in the context of a story.

Nearly every day, the gym came alive with stories. It provided the setting for the Oregon Trail, national parks, Greek tragedies, Shakespearian plays, the Olympic games and more.

“Incidents that happened within our stories happened in that space,” Marieka Greene, a second- and third-grade teacher, said of the gym. “Every storyline has a culmination which generally involves parents. They’re large productions that may include a whole grade level.”

For example, for the fourth- and fifth-graders learning about the Oregon Trail, there was an annual hoedown in the gym, complete with costumes and fresh pie.

“It’s a very theatrical way to teach so to have a stage was really cool,” Greene said, adding that stages aren’t usually built in school gyms anymore.

In the meantime, teachers are making do with the spaces they have. PE is taking place in the lunchroom inside the main school building, which means that students are eating lunch in their classrooms. Storylines are taking place in the lunchroom and the library.

“There were a few of us reflecting that we need to retrain our brains around it, that it’s not there anymore,” Greene said. “Walking through the halls past the classrooms that have the view, you’re still surprised by it.”

Greene echoed others involved: The collapse was devastating, but Highland will move on.

“If it had to happen anywhere, we are already a very functional, loving, supportive team,” she said. “We’re going to get through this.”

To mourn the gym is to celebrate many memories there: Greene reflected on the time Highland was teaching a schoolwide Olympics storyline when two-time Olympic gold medalist Ashton Eaton happened to be in Bend.

He came to the school’s gym for a special assembly on his birthday. The students sang him “Happy Birthday” and Eaton interacted with the students on their way out.

“He stood by the door of the gym and high-fived every single kid as they left,” Greene said.

Greene said the building was also a treasure to the community.

“There’s what it means to us and as a magnet school what it means to us in the way we teach,” she said. “But then there’s people in the community connected to the history of the building.”

The main school building at Highland Magnet, formerly known as Kenwood School, was built in 1919. The gym opened in 1950.

In the 1930s, The Bulletin described the construction of the gym as “an ill-fated project from the start.” Moving it from idea to reality took more than a decade.

The school board approved construction of a gymnasium at Kenwood School on Aug. 26, 1935, according to Bulletin archives. Two years later, the school board accepted architect’s plans for the gym, but construction bids were twice the cost of what the district expected — about $55,000.

Mention of a gym for Kenwood dropped from Bulletin reports until it was completed and opened up to the public with a concert, square dancing and games.

“The school band, under direction of Miss Marie Brosterhous, appeared for the first time in their new uniforms, purchased by the Kenwod PTA. After the concert, there was a square dance demonstration by pupils of the school,” the news clip said. “The new gym, 65 by 93 feet in its present state, provides Bend’s largest floor.”

That large floor provided opportunities for learning and fun for 67 years.

Michele Emery, a Highland parent and president emeritus of Bend-La Pine Schools Education Foundation, said watching her own kids perform on the gym’s stage provided a window into the past.

“You could almost look on the stage and see kids from 40 to 50 years ago,” she said. “It was an old building, and it kind of smelled like an old building, but it was so fun to go to.”

Hearing of the collapse was a heart-stopping moment, Emery said. Her daughter is in third grade there and her son graduated Highland last year.

“As a parent you kind of catch your breath a little bit,” she said.

There was a lot of nostalgia in her home about the gym after the collapse, Emery said.

“But every beginning has an ending,” she said.

The school district’s education foundation, which gives classroom grants, provided ukuleles, drums and a spotlight for Highland in recent years, according to Emery. All of that was lost in the roof collapse and subsequent demolition of the gym. She hopes when a gym is eventually rebuilt, the education foundation can make up for those lost items.

The school district is planning on salvaging the bricks, but they won’t be sold for a fundraiser, although that idea was rumored. After insurance handlings are complete, bricks will either be made available to the public or reused in the construction of a new gym.

Perhaps the opening of that gym will be celebrated with a square dance, too.

— Reporter: 541-383-0325, kfisicaro@bendbulletin.com

Highland’s gym was arguably dearer to its students, staff and families than the average elementary gym. Beyond hosting PE in cold months, the old gym was used for monthly assemblies, housed the school’s music room and provided a space large enough for classes to act out stories related to their curriculum.

If you go

What: Memories of Kenwood Elementary School history pub

When: Feb. 28; doors open at 5:30 p.m., presentation begins at 7 p.m.

Where: Father Luke Room, McMenamins Old St. Francis, 700 NW Bond St.

Cost: Free, all ages welcome