Interesting Odds and Ends

"Horace Mann" greets me every morning to work!

 
 Over the past two summers, I've managed to find a lot of notable gems throughout old files, boxes, and right in front of me. Here are some of my favorites:

• "Horace Mann," painted by Elaine Nunnally in 2005 for the Horsing Around Loudoun public art project, is probably the most public of the odds-and-ends here. It featured all the schools in the county at the time (68 schools in 2005. Seven years later, there are now 82!). Schools were grouped by their 2005 school clusters. There's a couple of dirt patches on the top saying "Under Construction." I believe the space is only an allusion to the fact of LCPS's continuing fast growth, not a space to update the horse in the future. Horsing Around Loudoun was a similar project to the Cow Parade.

• The Office of Support Services gets copies of facility use forms for their files. It was quite exciting to see the "Obama for America" LCHS rally one.

• In construction files, there were some blueprints for an Islamic Saudi Academy campus. It was dated late 90's. This was not being planned by LCPS but a group that had two campuses in Fairfax County. A quick google search led me to this article from 2004. Apparently, the Academy decided not to use the land, and it was sold to the county with schools in mind. According to this Washington Post article preview, the site would have been in Ashburn on Farmwell Road. Currently, there are only warehouses near/on the property. Broad Run HS is unrelatedly close by the site.

• I've collected many hats working here:
  
  
  

  
  

     The hat on the left is a regular hat. The hat on the right is almost a regular hat, except it also has a built-in flashlight under the bill of the hat! The center hat is a marching band hat from Park View HS. They recently got new uniforms, so the old ones were auctioned away. I was the only person there who knew what the different uniform pieces were (I have four years of high school marching band under my belt), so I really helped them out. We found 119 hats and plumes the first time, but after the auction, they found an extra hat, and you can't really sell one hat by itself, so it was given to me.

• While going through possible auction items, a CD Player had a CD in it. Testing the CD Player out with it, I realized this CD had all the songs that were played during my Elementary School P.E. class. What a blast to the past!

• This mug:
  

• There was a report on Round Hill Elementary School (Now the Round Hill Center/Support Facility) and the reasons why they decided to get tear down the original 1911 wing of the building. I don't remember exactly what it said, but it made sense and I appreciated the justification.

• High School Prototype Poster:
  

  

  In my cubicle from last year

  
  This was hanging in the old Douglass Support Facility. Between when the Fire and Rescue Squad practiced on the building (breaking holes through walls and ceilings) and the start of demolition, I saved this. Good thing too, because the next day it rained. The paper was very frail, so I had it laminated. It has proudly hung in my cubicle for two summers now. As you can see, it's a very wide poster. It doesn't match any school in particular, but I've been told it was printed before Stone Bridge HS.

• And, probably my favorite find, Stage Curtain Samples for the 1939 Arcola School.
  
  

  

  Regrettably the only picture I have is of the folder it was in.
  I was too in awe to remember to take any pictures of the samples.

   These were small curtain sample squares sent to Superintendent O.L. Emerick to pick out the curtain color. Now that duty would fall to the construction department; it just shows you how small the school system was. There were many different colors to choose from and at least three companies sent samples. I don't know which curtain sample was chosen. I didn't find this in any other school file, so for it to last as long as it had was quite impressive.

   As a final of final favorites, I have been lucky to have the opportunity to work with many wonderful gems of coworkers these last two years. They all work hard and do their jobs pretty well (as far as I know). But it wasn't all stiff and serious, I have many fine memories of small pranks and jokes. As much as some of them might not believe it, I enjoy all the unique personalities and will miss them.

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   This is my last week on the job. I do have a couple more posts I will be working on, so they will come out for the next few weeks (hopefully). This week will be more me-personal history stuff.