R.I.P. Eubank High School

As a member of the graduating class of 1965 at Eubank High School these announcements of the drawn out death of our alma mater are painful.  In 1965 I couldn't wait to be rid of the place but now, 50 years later, I realize that so much of my formative years had its place there.  

I began school at Eubank

photo by Terry Vaught

 in 1952 at an old building on the other side of Stanford Street (US 27) that parted Eubank right down the middle.  It was a bustling place then and school facilities were not as antiseptic as they now are.  After two years at the new elementary school I returned to this campus for Seventh Grade and stayed there for the next six years.  I paid little attention to the school and what became of it for the next 30 years but then became reacquainted with many of my former classmates and my attention returned.  We knew that students would never return to this high school but the old building stood there like a tombstone to remind us of the days we spent there.  Then the arsonist landed the death blow in 2011 when this building was consumed in a blaze.  After that it was just a hull that brought sadness.  Even now, with its final destruction, there is a twinge of sadness and a flood of memory.  All things pass but some are so dear to our hearts that they form a ephemeral connection between us and all those other people.

Now it will become a cemetery.  It seems fitting in a way that our memories will be laid to rest in that space after our demise.  I hope that a small monument or a brass plaque will be placed on the site to call succeeding generations to the memory.  But, all things pass.

Maybe one day there will be a need for another high school at Eubank.  I hope so and I hope that the memory of this one passed will be a part of it.

 What follows is a piece from the August 3, 2014 edition of the Somerset Commonwealth-Journal.

The landmark carries with it such fond memories that when a fire destroyed much of the building in 2011, Eubank’s citizens collectively mourned

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FILE

What remains of the old Eubank High School towers over the Eubank Cemetery, located near the intersection of Ky. 1247 and Ky. 70. The school’s cafeteria section underwent a controlled burn on Thursday to help make way for an expansion of the Eubank Cemetery onto the property. The school — held close to the hearts of Eubank residents — was destroyed in a series of fires in 2011, and the rest of the property will eventually be cleared to help beautify the property.

EUBANK: Last remnants of high school are now gone

the loss of the school.

Eubank Fire Chief Norman Rutheford, himself a 1975 graduate of Eubank High School, said Thursday’s controlled didn’t carry with it the heartbreak that the 2011 fires did.

“You sort of hate to see it all go,” said Rutheford. “But it hurt me worse when we had to sit and watch it burn (in 2011).

“It’s better now than it was then,” added Rutheford.

The Eubank Cemetery Board bought the property and the building, much of which has already been burned, late last year at a county auction hoping to one day expand the cemetery into the land or at least clean it.

The old Eubank School property sits just off Ky. 1247 — just a “stone’s throw away” from the cemetery, which is at the corner of Ky. 1247 and Ky. 70, according to Rutheford.

“At one time, that was the center of town,” said Rutheford.

The Eubank Baptist Church once sat at the corner as well, but the church has since moved to a location on North U.S. 27. The cemetery is also called the Eubank Baptist Church Cemetery, but many know it simply as the Eubank Cemetery.

Step one in the clean-up process was incinerating much of the rubble left behind when the Eubank Fire Department put out the original fires in 2011, according to cemetery board member Vickie Begley.

“Nothing was salvageable in the building,” Begley said. “(Right now) our intent is to just clean up the (high school site) because it’s such an eyesore.”

The land is the only area left in which the cemetery could expand, Begley said, which is largely why the cemetery board bought the land when it went up for auction— even if graves won’t go on that property for some time.

Rutheford said a portion of the old school remains, but he said they will tear that down as well.

“We’ll be getting rid of all the burned up buildings and making it pretty for the cemetery,” said Rutheford. “It’s going to make it nice for Eubank.”

And former high school students may even have the option of being laid to rest on the old campus.

“There’s lots of old Bulldogs (the school’s mascot) that would like to be buried there,” Begley said.

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