Image 1: Katherine Blanton photograph and text of Buchanan Elementary School.
Image 2: Newspaper clipping with photograph of the Buchanan Elementary School on fire at night. The caption reads, "Origin Unknown. Firemen stood by, unable to extinguish the blaze that destroyed Buchanan Elementary School early yesterday. The fire, which Botetourt County Sheriff Norman Sprinkle said is suspected to be arson, started about 2 a.m. in the school offices and library. No injuries were reported. The damage was estimated to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. The fire was so hot that nearby residents were warned to evacuate or be prepared to leave. Pupils in the fourth through sixth grades at the school were instructed to stay at home until other classrooms are found."
Image 3: A black and white photograph of children looking in at the fire damage.
Image 4: A newspaper article titled "Buchanan Pupils Not Worrying About Bad Grades After Fire," which reads,
"BUCHANAN - For some children at Buchanan Elementary School, Monday was a fresh start.
Their teachers' gradebooks, most of their textbooks and the report cards they were to receive this week were destroyed by a fire last week.
'Everything - all books, all puzzles, all records, all grades,' Jessie Williams, a fifth-grade teacher, said.
'I had finished the report cards Tuesday and left them on my desk,' she said Monday. 'The fire was Tuesday night. We're starting the year over today. No absences, no grades.'
Anne Vassar, another fifth-grade teacher, also lost all her pupils' grades and report cards in the fire that heavily damaged the 50-year-old school last week.
The fire displaced 188 children in grades four through six and their teachers from the old building. Monday they moved into the four-year-old Buchanan Elementary with 275 other children in kindergarten through grade three.
'We've got the room, it's just a question of working out the details,' Principal Bill Watson said as he scurried around the carpeted, open school.
The new Buchanan Elementary was built for 450 pupils, so the sudden addition of three grades puts it only 13 over that. A new wing is planned for a couple of years from now and the old school was to be phased out, anyway.
But the sudden loss of the building and irreplaceable records and personal belongings came as a shock to the pupils and teachers.
'I thought it was pretty sad,' said sixth-grader Johnny Harper. 'I lost some books I had, some of my friends' books. Some football magazines and a real expensive dictionary. I had a watch. I haven't found it yet.'
Johnny had to ask for directions to the restroom in his new school, but he said, 'I like the new setup, the way we have it around here.'
The ashes were still smoking last Wednesday when fifth-grader Anthony Linkenhoker, 11, returned to his old school to survey the ruins. He said he picked up a charred piece of windowsill and a shard of brick from where his classroom had been.
'It had a lot good memories in it,' he said of the old building. I just wanted to have some memories of it. I'm going to put them in a treasure chest and keep them.'
Virginia Walker, 10, another fifth-grader, lost an old picture of her grandfather she had taken to school to copy in art class.
'My grandfather died in '72,' she said, 'My father liked that picture a lot.'
Anna Mae Harris, another fifth-grade teacher, was luckier than her colleagues. Her report cards and gradebook were in her car.
'I just took them (last Tuesday afternoon) and dropped them in the car,' she said. 'I don't know why I didn't pick up my register, too.' The teacher's record, required by the state, was lost.
Watson said most of the pupils' cumulative records were lost in the fir, which fire officials believe was deliberately set.
'We'll have to reconstruct the records as best we can,' Wesley Kern, assistant principal, said.
The school office, the library, the gymnasium, and the fifth-grade rooms were destroyed, but some of the records in other classrooms were salvaged.
Watson and Kern went to the burning school with the firemen and managed to save many of the records and equipment in rooms that were not on fire.
'I went into a sixth-grade room while it (the building) was burning and removed some desks and filing cabinets,' Kern said.
About 5,000 books, audio-visual equipment and an aquarium of tropical fish in the library did not survive.
Watson and Kern said the firemen 'really did a job' saving what they could.
Watson said he and others began immediately after the fire to get the newer school ready for the additional students.
Movable bookcases and bulletin boards in the open-space school were moved closer together to accommodate the new classes.
Half of the library is new classrooms. Special reading is taught in the clinic. Rough plywood partitions divide the multi-purpose room (cafeteria, gym, auditorium) into three sixth-grade rooms.
Watson said five portable classrooms are on order and are expected in about two weeks. This will help restore the library and multipurpose room to full use.
Roanoke City sent some old desks to help its neighbor through the crisis, Watson said. Other school systems also sent books and other materials.
But the shock of the sudden loss lingers on with some of the children.
'It's terrible,' Anthony Linkenhoker said. 'I hope they catch whoever done it.'"
Image 5 - A newspaper article titled "Fire Destroys Buchanan School," which reads,
"BUCHANAN (AP) - Arson is suspected in a fire that destroyed the Buchanan Elementary school early Wednesday, Botetourt County Sheriff Norman Sprinkle said.
Sprinkle said the fire apparently started about 2 a. m. around the school's offices and library.
He said another fire Tuesday night at a nearby cleaners is believed to be related to the school fire.
No injuries were reported in either blaze. Damage in the school fire was estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
County school superintendent J. W. Obenshain said fourth, fifth and sixth graders who attended the school have been instructed to stay home until another location is found to hold classes.
Kindergarten through third grade pupils attend school in another building about two miles from the destroyed school.
Buchanan Fire Chief Jim Barley said that about the time the school fire was discovered there was an explosion inside the building followed quickly by at least two other blasts. The cause of the explosions has not been determined.
The fire was so hot that police warned people in homes nearby to leave or be prepared to evacuate.
'It's an emotional sort of thing,' Barley said of the fire. He said he and many of the firefighters were graduated from the school when it was a high school."
Image 6 - a black and white photograph of students in a makeshift classroom in a school gym with temporary walls. The caption reads, "Plywood Petitions in Mulipurpose Room Separate Classes."
