Bo-Dish Jr Letters Rise From The Ashes

Someone beat the Central Valley School Board to it.

As a ceremonial start of the renovation of Bowdish Junior High, board members gathered Friday morning with plans to remove the letters spelling out the school name from over the building’s main entrance.

However, someone else had removed the wooden letters the night before and apparently burned them.

“I smelled something, then I thought someone in the neighborhood had had a fire. Then I saw the burn barrel,” said Bowdish’s acting principal, Bob Johnson.

A trash barrel at the school entrance held the stink of fresh ashes. Only the outline of letters remained on the building.

CV maintenance workers frantically made new letters, so the 11 a.m. ceremony could proceed.

By ceremony time, enough brand new letters were screwed in - BO DISH JR - that the show went on. The “W” somehow came in a mismatched size, and the sidewalk superintendents decided it ought not be installed.

Still, it made a good prop for board member Kay Bryant, while colleagues Gary Hann, Cindy McMullen and Craig Holmes clambered up stepladders.

The improvisation didn’t get in the way of a moment of reverence.

“What made it a good school had nothing to do with the age of the building. It’s the commitment of the people here that counts,” Hann said.

, DataTimes