DATE: Monday, August 18, 1997               TAG: 9708180079

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY JEFFREY S. HAMPTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY                    LENGTH:   75 lines

HURRICANE-STRENGTH SCHOOL PREPS FOR FALL RIVER ROAD STUDENTS WILL SHARE CLASSES AT ELIZABETH CITY SCHOOL FOR A WHILE

River Road Middle School will be the first in the region built to withstand 110 mph winds, but it won't be ready for a storm of 500 teenagers until late October.

Until then, the students and staff will share facilities at the Elizabeth City Middle School, starting next week.

Construction crews at River Road are rolling bright white, blue and burgundy paint on the interior block walls and running miles of computer wiring just above the frame of the drop ceiling. Boxes of tile sit ready to cover the concrete floors.

Outside, machines rapidly deposit smooth curbing and gutters. Soon, crews will roll asphalt on the driveway and plant shrubs and grass.

``It's going very well,'' said Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Superintendent Joe Peele.

Steel reinforcing bars run vertically through the block walls. Joints on the building's metal frame are welded and bolted for extra strength. Steel roof joists are manufactured and fastened to resist uplift forces common in big hurricanes.

When finished this fall, River Road Middle School will be the first in the Albemarle to meet new state building codes. It should be able to withstand hurricanes up to Category 3.

Storms in that category have winds from 111 to 130 mph and usually cause extensive damage.

``After Hurricane Andrew hit Florida and Hurricane Hugo hit South Carolina, we made a thorough restudy of the building code,'' said Rod Andrew, a Wilmington consulting engineer who worked with Boney Architects on the River Road Middle School project.

Meanwhile, the Elizabeth City Middle School will become two schools in one.

When the new school is ready, the River Road people will move papers, books, supplies and themselves to the new school. The target date is Oct. 24.

``There is very little to move,'' Peele said. ``All we'll have to do is tell students to take all their books home.''

River Road School Principal Patti Hamler has been steadily working since May, preparing for the move. Boxes fill one end of her temporary office next to the construction shop. Until recently, she shared the room with two other staff members. She still needs to hire three teachers to get a full staff of 35. The two schools will share some teachers.

Hamler exudes enthusiasm and confidence over the task of running the school.

``We're just one big happy family,'' she said. ``It's the only way to go to work.''

Hamler left her job as assistant principal of Blair Middle School in Norfolk to come here last spring. One of her first acts was to greet the River Road-bound seventh- and eighth-graders with a ballot and a display of possible school colors and names.

``We got Rats, Road Kill, Ravens and Robins,'' Hamler said. ``They chose Rockets.''

The colors for the River Road Rockets will be burgundy and white, a combination claimed by no other middle school in the area. The Elizabeth City Middle School will be called the Yellow Jackets, the name carried by the old Elizabeth City High School. The Rockets are scheduled to play the Yellow Jackets for the first time on the weekend after the move.

This year, only seventh- and eighth-graders will attend both middle schools. In 1998-99, sixth-graders will join them, relieving some of the pressure on the elementary schools.

The boundary between the two middle schools divides the north and south sides of the county in a line that runs along South Road Street, Speed Street, Brooks Avenue, Halstead Avenue and U.S. 17 southward.

``It's unreal that it cuts almost exactly in half the number of students,'' said Charles White, the public relations officer for the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank school system.

The Rocket name even fits the shape of the new school. With its long center corridor and large connecting wings, an overhead view of the school could look like a space station.

``It's a beautiful facility,'' said Blair Jackson, the librarian of River Road Middle School. ``We're psyched.''

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu