DATE: Sunday, November 2, 1997              TAG: 9710310320

SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN             PAGE: 20   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   56 lines

RAINS FAIL TO MAKE OAKLAND DEDICATION A WASHOUT THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL BUILT AROUND THE HEART OF THE OLD ONE OPENED IN SEPTEMBER.

A standing room only crowd braved afternoon rains to dedicate the newly renovated Oakland Elementary School one week ago, sharing school superintendent Joyce Trump's sentiments ``Rain can't mess up our parade today.''

Faculty, parents and students joined city officials and alumni in celebrating the creation of a brand new building that had wrapped around and embraced the old Oakland School, a community landmark since it was built as a four room schoolhouse in 1929.

The new 62,000 square foot, $6.2 million school building incorporated 14,000 square feet of the old building in a unique combination of renovation and new construction that was completed in August.

The new school has a capacity of 505 students.

John Sammons, principal, said that students new to the area and students rezoned from Elephant's Fork Elementary have boosted Oakland's current enrollment to about 450 students.

Although recognizable traces of the old school are difficult to spot the building still feels like home to many of its alumni, including Ronald M. Goodwin, a local pastor, who attended Oakland from 1962 to 1969.

``Back then the places we went were church and this school so this is an important part of the community,'' he said.

Still an intregral part of the community, Oakland has been equipped with a full-size gym with bleachers for 250, an office and a meeting room designated for use by the city's parks and recreation department for community programs.

City councilman Chris Jones praised the community's support for the school and remarked that he had lived in Chuckatuck since 1960 and had never seen a traffic jam there before.

Dorothy Bland Gamble, a Chesapeake teacher who also lives in Chuckatuck, said that the school has historically enjoyed strong backing from the community and added that there were indeed traffic jams before.

Gamble remembered Oakland's May Day celebrations of the 1950's and 1960's where girls dressed in white dresses and pastel aprons danced around a ribboned May Pole in festivities that stopped traffic on the then narrower Godwin Boulevard that runs past the school.

Gamble, an Oakland alumni whose children also attend Oakland, was the May Queen in 1962.

Nostalgia for the school's heritage mixed with pride in the new facility's technology and ammenities as visitors toured the building.

Reminding visitors that other Suffolk schools are also in need of renovation and/or replacement Trump said ``Oakland sets the standard of what a renovation should be.'' ILLUSTRATION: File photo

The newly renovated and expanded Oakland Elementary, which opened in

September, was formally dedicated on Oct. 26.

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