It had been fairly a while since South Salt Lake Mayor Cherie Wooden sang the Granite Excessive Faculty combat tune.
The tune light away into historical past when the Granite Faculty District determined to shut down the varsity in 2009, after 103 years in South Salt Lake. So, who might blame her for forgetting phrases?
After fumbling across the first few strains, the lyrics slowly got here again to her, as did a flood of recollections. She considered occasions she sang the tune at college occasions or on the bus trip to video games as a member of the varsity’s soccer and basketball groups.
“Actually, I bought barely emotional simply remembering what these years have been to me in my life rising up,” Wooden stated.
Moments after alumni sang the combat tune, the mayor watched as kids huddled round her and Salt Lake County leaders final Friday morning to chop a ribbon and open the brand new Granite Department Salt Lake County Library on the grounds of what was once her alma mater.
A crowd of over 100 individuals, together with a number of who as soon as attended Granite Excessive Faculty, cheered because the doorways swung open they usually toured the brand new facility with their kids and grandchildren. It put to an finish a query mark concerning what would occur to the varsity after the century-old constructing was torn down in 2017.
Persevering with a legacy in a brand new approach
There have been a variety of prospects concerning the way forward for the Granite Excessive Faculty area 5 years in the past. A gaggle led by Granite Excessive alumni tried to protect the constructing as a historic website in 2017, hoping to revive it in the identical approach Trolley Sq. was put to business use. These plans by no means got here to fruition, because the constructing got here down later that yr.
Houses have been rapidly constructed within the area the place an previous set of bleachers as soon as stood. The most important query mark, nonetheless, was the northwest portion of the land, the place the varsity itself as soon as stood.
Planners had all kinds of growth concepts early on, together with a Walmart, which Wooden finally vetoed. She and Salt Lake County leaders each agreed that business growth simply did not appear to be an applicable option to honor the legacy of Granite Excessive Faculty.
“(We) actually paid consideration to what the residents have been saying they usually have been saying that that is sacred floor. That is sacred area to our neighborhood,” Wooden stated. “For over 100 years it had served our neighborhood and the encircling communities by being one of many first excessive colleges right here within the valley, so we wished to guarantee that no matter ended up growing right here continued on with that legacy.”
Salt Lake County bought the land for about $4 million, based on Jim Cooper, director of Salt Lake County Library Providers. The longer term for the plot of land rapidly morphed right into a plan for a brand new library, protecting the theme of training on the nook of 3300 South and 500 East. Floor broke on the 33,000-square-foot facility in 2020.
“This has been a labor of affection,” Cooper stated. “I believe it augments the neighborhood (and) provides a lot richness and worth to a neighborhood. Libraries will proceed to do this.”
Individuals attend the grand opening of the Salt Lake County Library’s Granite department in South Salt Lake on Friday.
Laura Seitz, Deseret Information
Inside, patrons can discover books, films, music and computer systems, in addition to a big inventive area part with digital actuality know-how, an audio and visible recording studio and 3D printing. There’s additionally a kitchen for culinary and vitamin lessons, a big assembly room that may seat as much as 100 individuals for neighborhood occasions, and smaller classrooms.
The outside of the constructing options panels designed as an artwork show named “Irene’s Irises,” Cooper added. It was created by Day Christiansen, the grandson of a Granite Excessive alumna who went on to open a flower store within the county.
Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson identified that the grass exterior of the constructing is water-wise and subsequently extra drought-tolerant, lowering the necessity to water it. It leads out to the play space exterior of the library itself, the place kids can run round and have enjoyable. Many kids took benefit of that Friday morning.
“I all the time joke, ‘It is not like your grandma’s library.’ … This library is constructed for the long run,” Wilson stated.
Paying homage to Granite Excessive Faculty
Whereas the library is geared towards educating the subsequent generations in South Salt Lake, items of the previous are additionally all around the constructing.
The Granite Department is a museum of kinds in that it contains a number of artifacts of the old fashioned. There are photos of Granite Excessive athletic groups from a century in the past plastered all through, and the old fashioned seal mosaic from the unique constructing’s entrance is on show, too.
A show cupboard in a single nook options varied college artifacts starting from a brick from the previous constructing to previous pennants, yearbooks and jerseys. A trophy from Granite Excessive’s 1936 state boys basketball championship title proudly sits on the prime.
Ida Coombs Bickley, a 1944 graduate of Granite Excessive Faculty, chats with South Salt Lake Mayor Cherie Wooden within the “Farmer’s Method” space of the Salt Lake County Library's Granite department through the facility's grand opening in South Salt Lake on Friday. Coombs Bickley, a cymbal participant, is within the {photograph} on the wall of the Granite Excessive Faculty marching band.
Laura Seitz, Deseret Information
A few of the lyrics to the varsity’s combat tune — the one which alumni sang Friday morning — are even printed in massive letters throughout the constructing, as are a number of references to the old fashioned’s Farmers moniker. Cooper stated there is a rock exterior of the library that emulates an previous rock that when sat exterior of the varsity after the county was unable to find the unique boulder.
It is clear that Granite Excessive Faculty lives on in a brand new kind.
As an alumna herself, it is a dream come true for Wooden.
“It was actually laborious to lose our over 100-year-old college however that is essentially the most excellent factor to serve our neighborhood and the legacy of Granite Excessive,” she stated, as kids raced round in search of books to select up behind her. “It is wonderful.”
