By CHRISTOPHER BOUCHER

Special to The Press

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.

But what about the places we visit?

To those buildings and locations, there can be a thousand different stories all built into its memory and legacy.

On May 19, twelve alumni of Schnecksville Elementary came back one last time to see their old primary stomping grounds before its scheduled demolition.

Schnecksville Elementary (also called Fred J. Jaindl Elementary School) was built in 1929 as one of the first primary schools for the Parkland School District.

The school and its buildings have undergone multiple renovations in the past, with the 1990s being the most productive with its new additions of the current cafeteria and gymnasium.

Because of the aging brickwork, the district decided to tear down most of the original building’s foundation for the school’s new outdoor courtyard.

“We don’t need it and this school needs something new,” Rod Troutman said.

Troutman has served as assistant superintendent since 2011 and will retire this Sept. 2.

In place of its older foundation, the school will be transforming the area into an outdoor courtyard.

“We plan on making the courtyard an outdoor learning space. An area where the kids can learn and present their projects with the comfort of the sunshine,” Troutman said with a grin.

At 4 p.m. Troutman unlocked the doors to the closed elementary building.

Where students’ artwork and posters once covered the walls, dust and debris plastered the hallways and empty classrooms.

Desks and papers lay in heaps around the corners of the room.

The only source of light came from the outdoor sunshine as the overhead lighting was firmly reduced to naked wiring.

But the 12 alumni still held their wide-eyed awe they possessed when they first walked through the school’s doors all those years ago.

Brian Horwith of the Class of 1976 organized the reunion as he lived right across the street from the school in his youth.

“This was my backyard when my parents told me to play outside,” Horwith states. “I lived so close, I didn’t really know what [it] was like to ride a school bus until high school!”

Some of the alumni had jobs at the school when they were learning like Cheryl Yencho, who answered the school phone when the half-day secretary was gone. “Usually what would happen is that once she left for Ironton Elementary, I had to be on call for the school.” Yencho served as the unofficial secretary during her fifth and sixth-grade years.

As the group passed old classrooms, many also remembered the administration that had once been there.

Lynne Banzhoff of the Class of 1976 was the niece of the then principal, Bob Kruder.

She recalled the embarrassing story of when she felt sick during class and her uncle came down to the room personally to check on her.

Principal Kruder’s tenure stretches back to even the early sixties.

Steve Kistler was in second grade when Kruder came in to deliver the horrible news of the Kennedy assassination in 1963.

“I can remember sitting at my desk like it was an ordinary day,” Kistler recalls. “Then Principal Kruder came in to tell us that we needed to go home, and that the president had been killed.”

Indeed, it would not be the only recollection of uncomfortable times.

The tour group eventually made its way into the basement, where among the debris of demolition, darkness enclosed the tight spaces.

The basement was one of the few areas that could serve as a bomb shelter if a nuclear strike was imminent.

“We had drills for nuclear bombs as often as we had them for fire and tornado drills,” Lynne Schillinger says. “It was during a time when the threat of nuclear war hung over us any and every day.”

The building is scheduled for demolition late this summer into the beginning of autumn.

One of the construction workers assured us most of the entrance to the original building will still be left intact to preserve the school’s history and memory.