Paradise School preservation committee meets

PARADISE – Though the Paradise School no longer hosts students during the school year, a group of local residents are working to ensure the historic building a new role, which will benefit the Paradise community well into the future.

The Paradise Elementary School Preservation Committee held their monthly meeting at the Paradise Methodist Church Clubhouse at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 18, and discussed future roles for the town’s structure.

County Commissioner Carol Brooker was in attendance, leading the meeting as a number of the preservation committee’s working groups made their proposal for possible uses of portions of the school and its surrounding grounds.

The construction of a veteran’s memorial, use of the space for a community center, the establishment of a museum focusing on the area’s history, creation of a visual arts center and using a portion of the school for a visitors center were all proposed and gone over during the meeting.

A sizeable number of ideas were discussed during the meeting and members of the committee were clearly excited by the possibilities presented to them by this historic space in the heart of Paradise.

Jen Kreiner of the Sanders County Community Development Corporation was on hand and noted compromises would have to be made to accommodate all the interested parties on the preservation committee.

“We have to realize coming together and making this happen, there are going to have to be concessions on all sides,” Kreiner said.

Compromise should not be an issue for the preservation committee, as members seemed open to proposed ideas and eager to discuss the ongoing efforts to ensure the preservation of one of the town’s most famous buildings.

Kreiner added without the volunteers present at the meeting it would be difficult to successfully complete the project.

“Volunteer committees are the fire that make these things strong,” Kreiner said.

Earlier in the summer the Paradise school was utilized to hold the first annual Artists in Paradise event, which was held from July 30 – Aug. 2.

The event was very successful providing an early indication of the substantial value of the school building as a future center of community events.  

According to the committee roughly 300 people visited the art show and around $5,000 was raised.

The study will focus on whether proposed uses of the school are viable and if the building would be able to sustain these uses well into the future.

The committee concluded this month’s business by moving to hold a ceremony to take down the elementary school’s clock in the future.

The event is tentatively scheduled for early November.

The preservation committee will next meet on Thursday, Oct. 9, in Paradise.

At next month’s meeting the committee will continue to move forward with its efforts to ensure the Paradise Elementary School remains an fixture of the Paradise community.

This month’s meeting generated a lot of interesting possibilities for future uses of the space.