Podcast #2 - Schools

The speaker shares her experience playing the kazoo during a parade for high school graduates during the pandemic. She also talks about her involvement in a school musical and her observations of the school's facilities. She discusses the history of the school and the challenges faced during its construction. The speaker mentions the upcoming construction of a new middle school and the demolition of the KRCC. She expresses concerns about the management of school properties and the lack of community services at the KRCC. She urges residents to pay attention to school board and village meetings. Overall, she encourages the community to keep moving forward and getting better. For those of you with even the tiniest roots in holly, you will recognize the holly fight song. It stirs the heart of every holly bronco, and yes, that is bronco with an H. That's another story. I really took up this whole holly fight song kazoo thing back during the pandemic when the holly high graduates were unable to have their regular ceremonies and all of their graduation parties and open houses. Some wonderful person came up with the idea of a parade that went from the KRCC through town and out to the high school, and that morning I said, Jim, let's not miss this. So I grabbed my kazoo and we went out and stood by the railroad tracks, and for an hour and 45 minutes I did nothing but. And if you don't think that the kids didn't appreciate that, I can't tell you how many popped up through the sunroof, rolled down the windows, started singing, cheers, yelled, hollered, thanked me. It was really a lot of fun. I have to say I was a tad disappointed the following year when the kids tried to do the same thing, but it just couldn't be organized and we had to go back to doing the same old same old. So that's why I've adopted the kazoo and the holly fight song. And that is one of the reasons why I wanted this episode to be about holly schools. First of all, I want to tell you that I did graduate in 1973. I was not a very active participant in school, but I was there, and I was really thrilled last winter when my friend and the holly high school theater director, Ms. Lou Harding asked me if I would be Betty Blass in their musical performance of Footloose. I'd never been on a theater stage before, and to further complicate things, my character's role was to be played on roller skates in an absolutely terrified, I don't know what to say. But I said, yes, I'd do it because I didn't want to miss the opportunity. I went on up to Roll Haven in Grand Blanc to get a skating lesson, and that's where I discovered that you could put casters on a walker, and then you could roller skate and not be so scared, so that's what I did. And I played Betty Blass, and I had the best time with those kids. They were so much fun. They're so full of enthusiasm and so caring and so smart. And they were also really just diligent, and they did what needed to do. I noticed a lot of things there when I was at the school that caused me to wonder about watching all of this money being spent on the new millage renewal and wondering how this was going to go down. There were quite a few things that needed to be fixing right there in the theater area. The orchestra pit supposedly has been flooded since forever, so the orchestra couldn't perform there, and it's covered over with plywood. The bathrooms in the atrium weren't open, so especially for older people, they were much chagrined to have to travel quite a distance to get to an open bathroom on those performance dates. And then I had to question any kind of clear communication in terms of an emergency. Our last day was supposed to be a matinee performance on a Sunday afternoon, but there was a terrible spring storm, and the power got knocked out. And it took almost an hour for us to receive direction that we needed to evacuate the school because supposedly without power, the fire suppression units would not necessarily work. Don't know if that's the truth, but again, it's like, eh, don't you know that stuff? To the kids' credit, they did come back from their spring break, and we put on a magnificent final performance of Footloose. Well, and now we've passed the millage renewal, and we have more buildings being built, and I guess I just wanted to share a little history of how things went down back in the day. Our old high school, which is now the KRCC, was built in 1958, and it was added on two through the years. Originally it was built on unstable swamp land. It has asbestos, and for many other reasons, it was no longer usable. In 1999, the schools passed a millage. I think it took several attempts, but it finally passed. And so on the selling points of being able to use the pool and have an indoor walking track open to the public, the school millage finally passed, and the new school was built, and the old high school became the Carl Richter Community Center, again, with promises of community enrichment and recreation programs that would be open to all of us. In the course of building that high school, some major development hurdles came up along the way. The biggest one being that the school board was going to have to purchase more land to accommodate the five septic fields that were going to be needed to handle their sewage. It turns out that if you don't build in a city, then that's the additional expense that you incur. We all had hope, at least in my neck of the woods, that a last-minute offer from Pulte might change the dynamic. They were willing to trade their property on Academy Road for the school's property on East Holly Road. This would have meant that the high school would have been built in the center of town with available water and sewers, sidewalks, streets, police department, the whole nine yards. But for reasons that were never quite made clear, the decision was made to go ahead and stick with the plan to build out on East Holly Road. That required the village and the township and the school board to enter into a 425 land transfer agreement that would allow the village to expend the water and sewer beyond its current village limits. And that was at the expense of the Holly area schools. They paid for that whole project. Missed opportunities is something you'll hear me talk about, and that's one of the biggest ones that I regret, was that we missed the opportunity to build a school or a trail or a sidewalk out to the school at that time, because that would have been the time to do it. Oh well. Water under the dam. Also, with this agreement, Holly Village was able to provide the police necessary for this high school out there. So where are we now? So that last bond renewal that we passed has allowed for major repairs and improvements to most Holly area school buildings. The biggest change that we're going to see, or I'm going to see, is going to be a new middle school opening in the fall of 2025. It's going to be built just south of the KRCC, and for those of us who are old townies, we are wondering how and why the new school is being built on property that's been called swamp land for 50 years. Stay tuned. That's just one of many questions. Along with this project, the KRCC is going to be demolished, so that will leave the Ben Sherman campus to be developed as school administration offices and a new community center with offices for Holly Area Youth Assistance, Holly Area Community Coalition, the Veterans Resource Administration, the Village offices, Holly DDA, and Chamber of Commerce. This is according to correspondence I received from Superintendent Roper. This all sounds pretty good until you start hearing the Village talk about building new headquarters in Cyclone Park. And in my dreams, a real community center would have township offices in the same location, so we might actually be able to do one-stop shopping when we pay our taxes and our bills. However, the township's plan is to build a municipal center at the farmstead site on North Holly Road. And honestly, I don't think the school does a really great job managing all their properties. I believe that's why we can't use the stage at the KRCC. And why when you go to the KRCC at night, it's dark as a tomb outside. If you go there for a meeting or to vote in the evening, you know what I'm talking about. I can't say that I blame the Village for not wanting to go back into a contractual lease agreement with the schools again. And speaking of trying again, I would give Holly Schools a D on their community education efforts. I remember when Dan Rolls was our community education director back in the 80s and 90s, and he ran programs at the old Mabel Benson Junior High School, which is now Venue 111. There were senior lunches every day. We had exercise, yoga, and dance classes. I took shorthand and dog obedience classes there. They hosted blood drives and community meetings. The gym was open nearly every night for volleyball or basketball. We packed Kiwanis Christmas baskets there every year. Now, what do we have for community services at the KRCC? Well, we have two hours of art with the Holly Van Goes on Monday and two hours of New Generation Seniors on Thursday. And these two days are there only because Angela Lemon reserves the room from the Village and reminds everyone to come on Facebook. Angela was recently named the Holly Area Chamber of Commerce Person of the Year, and she really deserves that credit, not only for the things that she does during the weeks at the KRCC, but for everything she does throughout the year. Besides pickleball, which is starting to pick up at the KRCC, you can walk around the gym in a little bit of the hallways. And in my opinion, this is really pretty much a very lame community center. When the high school was built, we were promised community access to the pool and the indoor track. That only happened for a little while because Holly Township Parks was running a swimming program at the pool, but that has since gone by the wayside. So what's that old saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. So residents of Holly, please pay attention to the school board meetings as well as Township and Village meetings. It's our money being spent and the footprint of our community being determined. We got to do more than complain to Facebook. I'm speaking out on this podcast, and I'd like to know what you're doing. So Holly, keep moving forward. Pay attention. We're just growing. We're just getting better. That's all the pearls from Sherrilyn for this podcast. Stay tuned for the next.