MCHS: The “Super School” - McNairy Central High School

Volume 05
Member of the
Tennessee High
School Press
Association
The
PawPrint
is a publication
of the McNairy
Central High School Journalism
Department.
The views and
opinions expressed here are
not necessarily those of the
administration, faculty or staff.
EDITOR Olivia King
COPY EDITOR Jessica Holmes
REPORTERS
Sarah Robinson, Meredith
Jaggers, Kelsey Pierce, Anna
Crabb, Emily Hill, Trula
Rockwell
ADVISOR Lisa Forsythe
UPCOMING
EVENTS:
Jan. 20
•DEAR Day
Jan. 21
•Freshmen Bball Hardin
Co. at home
Jan. 22
•Bball at Liberty
•McNairy County
Chamber of Commerce
Banquet in the
Commons
Jan. 25
•Hee Haw Practice in the
Little Theater from 6 to 9
Jan. 26
•Bball Lexington at Home
•Financial Aid Meeting for
Parents in the Library from
6 to 8:30
Jan. 27
•Progress Reports
Dustin Chandler
Issue 37
MCHS: The “Super School”
By Olivia King
The new “Super School” is
all anyone talked about in the
late sixties and early seventies.
Designed after a school in East
Tennessee, McNairy Central
High School was built in 1969
to be a fresh, technologically
advanced school for that time.
“The original structure is
of open-space design with a
commons area surrounded by
pods designed for instructional
purposes,” according to the
McNairy County Public Schools
Survey Report in March of
1978.
The school was built in circles,
called “pods,” all connected to a
big circle, the commons. There
are five pods and each pod has
a different department or set of
departments. It was advanced
for that time. The school was
also built without any windows.
No windows and the round
design was used to allow
teachers to “team teach,” where
they could help each other
teach. They thought this would
allow the students to get a
better education, almost similar
to taking at least double their
classes.
They used a new flat roof
to save money. There is a
membrane over the roof with
tiny pea gravel on top.
The new $2 million high
school was equipped with a
restaurant, a store with a show
window, an airplane engine,
welding machines, a foreign
language laboratory, a theater
for productions, closed-circuit
television, three kitchens
for home economic classes,
secretarial desks and office
machines, television production
equipment,
a
featured
planetarium, and a gym to hold
3,000.
MCHS was the only high
school in the southeastern part
of the United States to have a
planetarium. The school opened
the same year that man first
walked on the moon. Since,
the school was built during this
“Space Age,” it made the school
famous.
The commons area in the
center of the school was a
student lounge except from 11
to 2 when it was the dining
area. It was mostly a place for
students to just be teenagers.
If you wanted quiet study, you
could go to the little theater or
the library.
The students at McNairy
Central flowed traffic from
class to class in one direction
only. That meant they only had
one chance to get to their class;
if they walked past it, then they
had to walk the entire circle
again until they came back
around to it.
There were also plans for a
football stadium, baseball field,
golf course, 10-acre arboretum,
100-acre forestry-demonstration
project, and nature study trails
to be built after the school.
MCHS is located at the
almost geographical center of
McNairy County. It was built
that way since five schools —
Ramer, Michie, Bethel Springs,
McNairy County (Negro) and
Selmer — were closing for it
to open. There was and still
is only one other high school
in the county, Adamsville High
School.
Today, McNairy Central
High School has changed a
great deal. The design is no
longer considered a technology
innovator.
The school is still in pods,
but the floor plan is no longer
“open”. Walls have been added,
dividing the school into separate
classrooms. The “team teaching”
idea was not working.
E-Pod was added in 1975.
Unlike the other pods, it is not
a circle and has many windows.
Around that time, traffic flow
from class to class went twodirectional, just like a highway,
and remains that way today.
There is still a football
stadium, baseball and softball
fields, a store, welding machines,
the production theater (Little
Theater), three home economic
kitchens, gym, and a hole in
the floor where the planetarium
used to be.
The commons still serves as
a dining hall, but the only other
purpose it has is a place to stand
or sit before school. Students no
longer have a study hall. But, if
they do go somewhere to study,
it has to be the library.
The flat roof causes numerous
problems. The pea gravel wears
away, causing rain to seep into
the ceiling. Water drips from
the ceiling and runs down the
walls.
The leaks are especially bad
around the outer wall of EPod. This is bad because many
computer labs are located in
this pod.
In D-Pod, the largest section
of the school, the leaks are also
worse along the external wall,
as well as the center of the pod.
Other leaks are spread
throughout the school, however
the ceilings and walls closest to
the outside tend to be the worst
places for leaks.
Water damage has caused
many problems. There have been
many, many tiles replaced.
There was a basketball game
cancelled in the early eighties
because the gym was leaking. In
2008, a pipe burst, flooding an
entire section of D-Pod, blocking
off several classrooms.
There is mold due to
the building leaking and
deteriorating. Tiles all over the
school are covered in mold.
Many students and parents feel
that causes some of the sickness
at MCHS.
Even students in classrooms
without windows can tell it is
raining because they can see
their room beginning to leak.
Often there is an announcement
made asking teachers to report
their water leaks to the office;
that is a good indicator that it
is raining.
The planetarium has also
been destroyed because there
is so much condensation in the
ground where it is stored. It can
no longer be used without heavy
repair that would cost thousands
of dollars.
As far as roof repairs, “There
are no repair plans in the future
that I am aware of,” Assistant
Principal, Scott Powers says.
Despite
the
building
deterioration, the focus remains
the same - educating students,
one by one, for a successful
career after high school.
Pictures (From top to
bottom):
Southern School Photography
By: Trula Rockwell
For Dustin Chandler’s senior
project, he is learning Hapkido,
a form of mixed martial arts.
Chandler chose to learn selfdefense so that he could be more
physically fit. He attends a class
for MMA twice a week under the
instruction of his mentor, Craig
Hamm. Hamm teaches classes
locally in Selmer. Chandler
will use this knowledge in the
future to protect himself from
possible harm and to have more
discipline.
-Sky view of McNairy
Central High School in
2006
-Students in the Foreign
Language Department
during the 1970s
-Students using the
Planetarium during the
1980s
-Students using the Home
Economics Department
during the 1970s
-Students in the
Commons area during the
1970s
-Students walking the
halls of MCHS during the
1970s
Photos from yearbooks and Shearon Smith