KINCAID — Members of the City Council voted unanimously Wednesday evening to accept ownership of the old Kincaid High School.
This morning, Mayor Kathy Neudeck called Kelly Buchanan, the school’s owner, to report on the vote. Buchanan, who lives out of state, purchased the building after the Crest district closed it five years ago as a middle school and moved students to Colony. A nearby elementary school, a newer single-story structure, also is for sale but has drawn no local interest.
Initially, locals were told that Buchanan planned to open a boarding school. That didn’t gain traction and recently Buchanan has tried to shed himself of the two-story brick school, built as a Works Progress Administration project in the mid-1930s. It opened in 1936; the last high school graduation occurred in 1967.
While the city will assume ownership, it doesn’t have money in its budget to pay 2009 taxes of $6,464 on the building, which Buchanan has said he would accept in exchange for a deed to the school.
That’s where an alumni group, which met March 1 “to save our school,” enters the equation. Next Wednesday evening another meeting will occur to organize a board to operate the school as community center. Alumni, councilmen and members of the Kincaid Lions and Kincaid Fair Board will be invited. First business will be to raise money to pay the property taxes.
Before then, Neudeck said she would visit with Anderson County commissioners to ask that they forgive half or more of taxes due.
“I think they will work with us,” said Councilman Leonard Leadstrom, a proponent of local ownership.
Neudeck said city offices and the senior center nutrition site would be moved to the school. They are in the current community center that “needs more work than the school does,” according to Neudeck.
A new metal roof was put on the school two years before it closed and other maintenance and cosmetic work, including tuck-pointing the brick exterior, were done.
“I think you could have it back up and running as a school in a couple of weeks,” said Leadstrom. However, plans for rehabilitation will await a more thorough inspection, likely from the practiced eye of an architect.
Charles Heath, a U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development specialist, told the 35 people at Wednesday night’s meeting that grant money, with 25 percent local input, could be available.
The money would come from federal stimulus funds, he said, which must be allocated by Sept. 30 and adds an element of urgency. While a grant total wouldn’t be known until careful inspections, Jack Donaldson, an alumni leader, said he was confident money could be raised to meet local obligations, even without a grant.
WHILE SIMILAR experience with a school in Stark may be a model for what’s done in Kincaid, remodeling the school as a comprehensive community center will be down the road and plans for all that might be done popped up like mushrooms on a warm, muggy night.
City offices, open three days a week, and the nutrition site would be immediate needs. The assumption is little money would be required to remake a room used for home economics into a kitchen. Cabinets remain in place and appliances can be moved from the current community center.
A variety of community programs were mentioned, along with an indoor walking area in the gymnasium and a library in areas of the school originally designed for that.
A welcome outcome of last night’s meeting for proponents was that disparaging remarks were absent from comments, and that financial concerns often were dismissed as “something we can do.”
BUTCH CUPPET, president for more than 20 years of a community board that operates the old Stark High School as a community center, sketched how that came about. Kincaid has population of 130, Stark 80.
The school sat vacant for years and “was in pretty bad shape,” Cuppet said. An alumni group came to the rescue, with volunteers raising money and “putting in hundreds of hours to fix up the school.”
A 12-member community board, with representatives from the city, township and 4-H and other clubs, looks after the building, which is rented several times a month for community events, weddings and family reunions. Use for community fitness programs and recreation — the gymnasium is popular for pick-up basketball games — is free.
Finances haven’t been a problem, Cuppet said. About $4,000 a year is collected to run the community center of which the city contributes $1,000. Other monies come from rent of the building. Rental fees range from $35 to $150, depending on degree of use. Private donations also help pad the budget.
“Two years ago we needed a new roof and raised $35,000 in donations in two weeks,” Cuppet said.
