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Grand Opening Held For New Ernest Ward Middle School
October 7, 2015
An official grand opening and ribbon cutting was held Tuesday for the newly rebuilt Ernest Ward Middle School in Walnut Hill.
The modern $20 million facility, funded by the half-cent sales tax, replaced a a campus that was among the oldest in the district.
“Many Ernest Ward students before you have already established that you should study hard, working to prepare yourself for the next big thing that is going to happen in your life,” School Superintendent Malcolm Thomas told the student body and invited guests. “To help you do that, the school district has presented you with a brand new, state of the art middle school.”
“Everybody deserves the opportunity to go to new once in their life,” District 5 school board member Bill Slayton said. “You are in a great facility.”
Architect Mike Marshall told the nearly 500 Ernest Ward students to make good use of the building. He challenged the students to always do their best, and work to get their photo on NorthEscambia.com for a positive accomplishment.
Tiffany Bates from of the office of Congressman Jeff Miller presented a flag flown over the U.S. Capitol in honor of the school’s grand opening.
Students moved into the Ernest Ward back in January so classes continue while the old school was demolished.
The oldest buildings at Ernest Ward, including the main classroom wing, were constructed in 1945 to replace a campus ravaged by fire in 1943. That old school had been constructed to replace an Ernest Ward School that first opened in a log cabin in 1896.
Ernest Ward graduate Billy Ward, who later served as a longtime probate judge in Escambia County, was a special guest at Tuesday’s ribbon cutting. He is the nephew of the Ernest Ward for which the school was named.
Ward remembers the day in 1943 that smoke billowed toward the sky from what was then the campus of Ernest Ward on Arthur Brown Road, near the site of the modern day grain elevator. “I rode my bicycle as hard as I could to get over there and see what happened,” he said. “It just burnt to the ground.”
Classes for the remainder of 1943 and 1944 were held in the school gym, located across Arthur Brown Road and untouched by the fire.
“They divided the gym up and we finished school there,” Ward explained, “before they open the new school here (on Highway 97) in 1945. It was nice back then.”
“But this is something else now,” Ward said Tuesday of the new facility. “It has everything the students need.”
Pictured top and upper inset: The grand opening ribbon cutting at Ernest Ward Middle School in Walnut Hill on Tuesday. Pictured bottom inset: Ernest Ward graduate and former probate judge Billy Ward. Pictured below: Ernest Ward students, many wearing pink fore breast cancer awareness, listen to the grand opening ceremony. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
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