THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 26, 1995 TAG: 9507250118
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALLISON T. WILLIAMS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CARRSVILLE LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
The last thing Jane Butler expected to see on her morning walk last week was a 20-ton Caterpillar excavator on the verge of razing Carrsville Elementary School.
Three generations of the Butler family attended the 72-year-old school in northeast Isle of Wight County. The building was demolished July 17 to make way for a new elementary school.
Her husband's father, A.R. Butler Jr., graduated from there in 1927, when it was a high school. Her husband, Alfred, and later her sons, Alfred and Charles, attended grade school there.
``Everybody around here went there,'' Butler said. ``Although we knew it was going to happen, we had been out of town and didn't realize it was going to be Monday.
``I had kind of a strange, sad but good feeling when I saw it. I think the fact that they are are putting the new school in the same place keeps it from being so tragic.''
Early a week ago Monday, demolition crews from K.F. Wilson Contractor Inc., AMW of Tidewater, and Virtexco, the general contractor, gutted the interior of the school, and by noon they began demolishing the rear building.
Crews completed the project by Tuesday by tearing down the school's pillared front.
It took cleaning crews about a week to clear the site of rubble.
The new $2.8 million elementary school is on schedule and expected to be completed by next June, said Alexander Decker, assistant superintendent of schools. Carrsville students will attend Windsor Elementary School for the 1995-96 school year. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
After bulldozers razed Carrsville Elementary School, former students
and residents carried off some rubble as keepsakes.
by CNB