FAYETTEVILLE — Asbell Elementary School observes a milestone birthday this week.
Teachers and former students remember the family-like atmosphere when the school had about 200 students. The building is larger and has twice as many students than when it opened in fall 1962.
“It’s like a second home,” said Judi McGhee, who works in the school office and started there as a kindergarten aide 30 years ago.
“I always enjoyed the kids,” McGhee said. “I guess I still do enjoy it because I haven’t retired.”
At A Glance
Asbell Elementary School
The Name: The school is named in honor of John M. Asbell, whose family occupied the land where the school is situated. Asbell was the pastor of First Christian Church in Fayetteville from 1924 to 1934 and also served as pastor of First Christian Church in Springdale, the Christian Churches of Baldwin and West Fork and the Union Church of Baptist Ford. He was a lifetime member of the Fayetteville Rotary Club. He died in 1962, just days after the School Board voted to name the newest school after him.
Enrollment: 454
Poverty: 79 percent of the students qualify for free and reduced-price meals
Motto: School with a heart
Colors: Green, white and gold
Mascot: Roadrunner
Source: Fayetteville School District
Carlena Lambert has been teaching music for 30 years at the school.
Lambert said the school building has undergone a transition with various construction projects.
“The patchwork design reflects the mission to meet the needs of all students with kindness and respect,” she said.
Asbell boasted the district’s first open space classroom, which was a sort of library for the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students.
“It was called the Gold Room, because it had a gold shag carpet on the floor,” Lambert said.
Students learned how to quilt, thanks to some teachers, including Beverly Augustine, Pat Storey and Sue Gillman, who teaches at McNair Middle School.
Chances to win the quilts were sold and the money was donated to an organization selected by the students, Lambert said.
“It was a rich part of Asbell history,” Lambert said.
The quilt program no longer exists because teaching has become more standardized and teachers have little time in the day for such activities.
“There have been innovative teachers who have passed through our halls,” Lambert said. One was her sister, Helen Scott, the first music teacher hired by the school district.
Tracy Bratton is the school’s seventh principal. She joined the Asbell family in July.
Two programs are planned Thursday to celebrate the school’s birthday. Nancy Ballard, a former student and teacher, will tell how the roadrunner became the school’s mascot and Lambert’s music students will sing an original anthem by she and Susan Wizer, a teacher at Vandergriff Elementary School at an assembly.
Tours of the school will be available at 6 p.m., followed by a program at 6:30 p.m., which again will feature former students and teachers, Bratton said.
All former students, teachers and parents are invited to join the celebration.
An office and entrance were added to the building in 2008. The School Board allowed the school to switch to a continuous learning calendar several years ago. The school year begins about two weeks earlier and dismisses two weeks later than traditional schools. There are longer and more frequent breaks in the school year.
Ballard was in the sixth grade when her classmates voted to make the roadrunner the school mascot. The idea was to pick a mascot that demonstrated speed to represent the school in a citywide track meet in the spring of 1965.
“We wanted it to be fast,” Ballard said.
Reading was an important part of the school day, Ballard said. A paper chain would be created representing each book read by the students. The chain would be long enough to wrap around the school twice, she said.
Ballard also remembers former principal Jim Paul once sitting on the roof to read a book to students because he lost a bet.
Paul, recalling his fondest memories, remembers Kite Day when students flew kites in a pasture across the street from the school. In the 1960s, the school was on the edge of town surrounded by open spaces.
“I remember the library was much smaller but I always looked forward to going into the library to check out books,” Paul said. He attended Asbell in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades, when the school was new.
He returned in 1986 as principal and guided the school for the next 18 years, retiring in 2004.
During that time, he saw the demographics of the school change to include students with more and different needs. In 1986, 45 percent of the school’s students qualified for free and reduced-price meals; in 2004, the percentage was 65 percent.
Today, the percentage is 79 percent, the highest in Fayetteville, Bratton said. As the demographics changed, the school established food and clothing closets to assist students.
Paul said at one time the Asbell attendance zone encompassed neighborhoods that now attend Holcomb and Owl Creek elementaries.
Jan Moore spent many years in the Gold Room, first as a librarian, then as a library aide after the school district became accredited and required to hire a certified librarian. Her job was that of materials coordinator and her responsibility was to keep machines in working order, such as film and slide projectors and reading machines.
“I loved it,” Moore said. “I have so many memories that I can’t think about without getting a tear in my eye.”