ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 23, 1997 TAG: 9704230078
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER THE ROANOKE TIMES
Alumni want the $8.5 million plan to include a statue or bust of educator Lucy Addison near the building's front.
Lucy Addison, an educator who helped establish the first black high school in Roanoke, will be remembered when the school bearing her name is renovated in two years.
Addison's historical and cultural legacy will be incorporated into the design plan for the renovation of Addison Middle School, said Richard Kelley, assistant superintendent for operations.
"We want the building to be a source of pride for the community, and we want to honor her legacy," Kelley said Tuesday night at a community meeting to get suggestions for the project.
An alumni group for the Addison school, which was the city's black high school during segregation, wants a statue or bust of the educator to be placed near the front of the building at Orange Avenue and Fifth Street Northwest.
The alumni also have asked that a Lucy Addison Memorial Conference Room be included in the $8.5 million renovation plan. The room would contain memorabilia from the black educator's life.
Charles Price, a 1965 graduate, said the room also should contain memorabilia linked to the accomplishments of the school and its students during the years when it was a high school.
From 1952 until the late 1960s, when Roanoke's schools were integrated, Addison "represented the city as far as African-Americans were concerned" in athletics, art, drama and other student activities, Price said.
"I think these things are a part of Addison. They carried on what [Lucy Addison] represented and her ideals," he said. "This is a part of the school's history that stretched all over the state [in Addison's competition with other schools.]"
School officials said some Addison memorabilia are stored at the School Administration Building, which was the first Addison High School.
There was no high school for blacks in Roanoke until 1917, when the former Harrison School - with Lucy Addison as principal - offered one year of high school credit. Harrison became a state-accredited high school in 1924.
Addison retired in 1927, and the city named its newest high school for her in 1928. That building later became Booker T. Washington Junior High and, most recently, the School Administration Building.
A new Addison High School, which now is a middle school with an aerospace magnet program, opened in 1952 and remained a high school until 1973, when it became a junior high and later a middle school. It was integrated in the late 1960s.
Kelley said the building's main features will be preserved in the renovation, although architect Richard Rife said the cafeteria, library and some other facilities might be relocated to provide a better middle school plan.
Rife said the building is structurally sound and suitable for renovation. "It is reinforced concrete and structurally a vault," he said.
Alumni, parents and teachers made many suggestions for improvements in the renovation: more parking, better athletic facilities, more green space for students, better accessibility, upgraded art and music rooms, and a more aesthetically pleasing plaza at the front of the school.
The architects plan to distribute a questionnaire through The Roanoke Tribune, a weekly newspaper targeted to the black community, to get more alumni ideas on the project. Several design options will be developed this summer and presented to the community and the school's staff this fall.
The architects are expected to submit the preliminary design plan to the School Board by November or December.
The project is expected to be advertised for bids next spring, with a contract to be awarded by May 1998. The school will be closed for renovation during the 1998-99 school year.
The NAACP complained earlier about the School Board's refusal to delay the hiring of architects for the project until it could express its views about the selection.
Martin Jeffrey, president of the Roanoke branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said black participation is needed on the Addison project to avoid a controversy like that surrounding the Henry Street project.
But Superintendent Wayne Harris said several Addison alumni served on the committee that recommended the selection of Rife & Wood, a Roanoke firm, to design the project. Harris said school officials are keenly aware of Addison's significance to the black community.
Jeffrey did not attend the community meeting Tuesday night, and there were no complaints about the architects.
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