Loudoun County High School: Decorative Wooden Urns

Loudoun County High School, December 2009
(They were replacing the gutters and molding in the picture)

I'm not one of those people who likes to brag, but this is a nice story and I feel like it could eventually be forgotten, like the urns in this story.

This story is about Loudoun County HS's cupola. The cupola on County is the tower structure on the roof. Now cupolas can have an ornamental role, but their main function is a natural air conditioner (LCHS didn't have an a/c machine until the 1990's). Hot air rises, and a cupola is the highest point, so all the hot air leaves through the slits on the sides. County's cupola is not a bell tower or a clock tower. The cupola itself is a pretty tall structure. It actually makes County the tallest school in the county (The Administration Building in Ashburn is the tallest building used by LCPS)

My senior year, I was co-president of County's drama department. I had this crazy idea to go through ALL the old yearbooks, take a picture of each individual year's drama page, and then post them all on the drama department's Facebook page. It was crazy and daunting (but I did it!), and I learned a lot about the school in the process.

It was pretty early on when I made my first big discovery. In Lord Loudoun 1959, they had many glamour shots of the front of the school. The yearbook was celebrating the school's 5th year of operation.

LCHS Front Lawn. No trees! LL 1959

LCHS Front Lawn from the road.
I would love to be able to take pictures like this. LL 1959

LCHS Cupola, LL 1959

What I noticed was there were these corner decorations (their official name from the blueprints are "Decorative Wooden Urns") that the school no longer had. (It should be noted these urns were only used for decoration, so to my knowledge they were solid and there was no way to open them nor any remains contained within them.)

My mission changed from a casual look-through to a full-blown mystery. Long story short, I random jumped a bit, and I found they disappeared between LL 1976 and LL 1977.

LCHS with urns, LL 1976

Urn-less LCHS, LL 1977

According to LL 1977, there was a renovation/addition during the summer of 1976. A whole new wing of the school was added, an auxiliary gym (now the wrestling room and various locker rooms). There was also work done all over the school. Most, if not all, of the windows were replaced. The few faculty that is still around from that time did not remember the urns when I asked them about it.
So, whatever happened, all that was left of the wooden urns were four stumps. Once I saw them, it was all I could see.

My next bet was to continue asking faculty members, which included trying to get ahold of the principal from back then.

"Alumnus Returns to L.C.H.S. as Principal"
Dr. Edgar B, Hatrick, LL 1976

Dr. Hatrick, a LCHS graduate, was principal of LCHS during both of those years and now happens to be Superintendent of LCPS. I emailed him about the cupola and the decorative wooden urns, and I asked if he knew what happened to them. I also sent him these two pictures:

LCHS Cupola, Lord Loudoun 1959

LCHS Cupola, Fall 2009

  

I shortly got an email response, saying he didn't remember the urns, but there was a massive repainting/repairing on the cupola around that time. He then went on to tell me he asked Mr. Oblas to check the attic to see if they were there. They were not, so he was going to have new urns (fiberglass ones) constructed to go up on the cupola.

That was more than I could dream of for a first reply. I didn't ask for replicas, but I probably would have eventually asked or done something about it.

Time passed. Thanksgiving, Winter Break, and Spring Break passed by.

April 26, 2010 they started putting up scaffolding around the cupola. Not only was the cupola getting urns, it was getting a paint job and its copper top cleaned up.

Scaffolding going up!

Fully tarped, the paint has been stripped off

"Caution, Lead Hazard, Keep Out"

Fun Fact: the weather vane's rod is six feet tall.

Repainting

Soon, the whole thing was finished and the scaffolding came down. The copper looked like melted chocolate. The cupola remained in this way for a couple of days to a week.

Then, one morning, they arrived.

DECORATIVE FIBERGLASS URNS!!

Installation took two days. The first day, they tested them out.

Each urn is four feet tall!

On the second day, they were installed.

Everything was finished right before my graduation. It was a dream come true.

Furthering the dream at graduation, Dr. Hatrick had a speech, and a large part of it was about the urns and I. That was a big honor for me. Later, I got name-dropped by the guest speaker, Dr. Vinton Cerf. He co-designed the Internet. His speech was titled "The Power of Discontent," about how discontent is a force that creates ideas for change to improve the future. I think I have taken that message to heart.

Mr. Internet (June 2010)

I don't know whatever happened to the original wooden urns. The main theory is they started rotting, but who knows, maybe someone is using them as the tops of bed posts right now.


Two things that are interesting:

In the 2005 renovation plans for LCHS, whenever they showed the cupola, the urns also appeared. Were they supposed to be added on? It could be they just lifted it from the original blueprints

The other interesting thing is the school crest.

LCHS School Crest

The crest doesn't depict the urns. That's another reason they could be easily forgotten if nothing had an image of them. From an artistic standpoint, it would be a lot of detail to include the urns, they'd just look like black blobs and mess up the lines. The cupola doesn't look like it's missing them if they aren't put in. (This is all just theory. I'm not sure.)

So that's the story! That is why you will hardly see me posting pictures of Loudoun County HS pre-urns. I don't want Google Image Search full of outdated pictures, and I don't want people to forget them again.

Hey County. Haven't seen you look so good since 1976.

This is my last day of work, but not the finale of the blog. Still got a few more posts to work on. It's been a great two years. I've learned a lot, I've had lots of fun. I'm going to miss working here.

Sources:

LCHS Graduation 2010

Loudoun Times Mirror LCHS Graduation 2010 Article