Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 12, 1993 TAG: 9302120373
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RINER LENGTH: Long
CABIN TAKING HEAT
SOME SAY THE LOG CABIN is too old and cold to house Auburn High School students. Others say it's the perfect place to learn
They say Honest Abe Lincoln, who would be 184 years old today, trudged five miles to school and studied at his hearth by firelight.
These days your average student rides to school on a yellow bus and reads by the light of the television - during MTV commercials.
Nonetheless, at Auburn High School, the spirit of Lincoln remains a presence during government classes.
In fact, it's as if he's invited the students over to his rustic house to discuss public affairs.
Ol' Abe watches over the academic proceedings from a poster titled "Our Voting Heritage" on the wall of the school's very own log cabin.
The cabin's been a colorful part of the Riner community's history for 50 years. Some say there's no more appropriate place to study U.S. government.
Lately, however, more folks than Lincoln have cast a critical eye on the cabin.
Montgomery County School Board member Barry Worth expressed his displeasure last month that classes were being held in the antiquated cabin and called for its replacement.
Likewise, at a recent public hearing on the county school budget, Auburn High School parent Glenda Thomas said the cabin was so cold in the winter that her daughter had to wear a coat throughout class.
"Is this an environment that is conducive to learning?" she asked.
John "Stretch" Beach and his students say yes.
"The idea of a log cabin in a rural community, it kind of fits," said Beach, who teaches there. "It's in character with our heritage."
"It's needed as classroom space," said Auburn Principal Bob Miller. "We didn't put a classroom out there for the charm; although it is charming."
"I love it. It's different," said senior Jennifer Weeks. "It does get cold in the winter."
Beach has learned to turn on the cabin's rumbling old furnace at the start of classes, so he and his students have to shout at one another only for the first few minutes.
"For the past several months, it's been working," he said. "But it's loud when it first comes on.
On a recent sunny February afternoon, four of Beach's 21 ebullient students wore coats during a rowdy class quiz on current events.
There are other quirks. Inside the cabin, electrical wiring snakes along the chinked walls from a fuse box to various outlets, including the furnace, an electric fan behind Beach's desk for hot days and fluorescent lights hanging between ceiling log beams.
When one of the lights suddenly flickered off in the middle of class last week, a student cracked, "Boy, this is a great school system we got."
"As an older structure, it has some problems," said Beach. "But it's not as if they're being ignored."
This month, for example, the school system installed a new wooden porch. "Cool!" said one student as she hopped up and down on the fresh boards.
"We're doing the best we can," said Larry Schoff, Montgomery County schools' director of facilities and maintenance. "The cabin has been adapted to be used for something it wasn't built for."
The cabin presents no code problems and satisfies all the regulations schools must meet for classroom space, he said.
Having previously taught at other schools of the modern windowless design - which look more like bomb shelters than schools - Beach says he greatly prefers the cabin.
Where else could a teacher catch the aroma of fresh tomatoes and apple butter from the seasonal community cannery next door? he says. "It's full of life."
"The cabin's the cabin," said student Andy Stull. "It's always been here. If you grow up in the community, you accept it."
Students were involved with the cabin long before classes were held there. The father of the structure was Riner math teacher Harvey W. McCann Jr., who decided in 1941 that the community needed a recreation center other than a pool hall.
McCann's students embraced the project avidly, sponsoring fund-raising benefits and, with donated materials, staging an old-fashioned log-cabin-raising.
World War II nearly interrupted construction. McCann left Riner to pilot B-17 bombers and turned his supervisory responsibilities to George C. Gulliams.
Gulliams, who retired in 1987 after working 45 years for Montgomery County schools, then was a young agriculture teacher fresh out of college.
"He asked me if I would see that it was finished," Gulliams said of McCann. "I said I would."
With help from the Riner Grange association, and from Bob Weaver, the Riner school's custodian, Gulliams and the students completed the cabin during the war.
McCann never returned, losing his life in a plane crash after the war.
Thereafter, the building had a lively existence, housing grange meetings, wedding receptions, band practices, extension dinners, Halloween parties, piano recitals and all sorts of civic happenings.
"There's a lot of strong sentiment toward that building," said long-time Riner resident J. Edwin Keith. "It's so much of our history."
About 20 years ago the cabin became a classroom. "The school needed the space more than the community did," said Gulliams.
The large fireplace was covered by boards and a wall was built to divide the cabin into two classrooms. Beach's office, a small room off from the main classroom, used to be a kitchen.
The cabin sits beside present-day Auburn Middle and High School. Like many other buildings in the Riner area, the school occupies what once were open fields.
Things are changing in Riner as subdivisions grow where crops once did. Some parents believe the county's financial commitment to Auburn school isn't keeping pace, and that the shabby cabin is symbolic.
Miller, who took piano lessons in the cabin as an elementary school student, says opinions about the building vary among community members.
"It would depend on who you ask. Some people see it as an issue of disparity and neglect. Others see it as part of our heritage."
"It's very important for people in our community to be given the same respect as other areas of the county," said Beach.
Yet he's "quite proud" of the cabin, and so are his students. Beach said he polled his classes when the cabin was criticized by Worth.
"All they said was that they'd like for the heat to work consistently."
Schoff said a new propane furnace is in the works for the cabin.
Meanwhile, the school system believes the cabin "serves its purpose well," he said.
"It's going to be there for some time. What better place to teach U.S. government?"