Significant gift is worth preserving

In those rare cases in life when you find yourself on the receiving end of a significant philanthropic gesture, what should you do? I, among the many hundreds of others who have attended Nancy Reynolds Elementary School in northwest Stokes County, think that it is time to say "thank you" -- by asking the Stokes County Board of Education to commit the necessary resources to preserving this incredible, valuable and unique gift to its community from the R.J. Reynolds family.

Nancy Reynolds School is the direct result of the very best kind of philanthropy. In 1923, the Reynolds Foundation fully financed the construction of a memorial school built at the birthplace of R.J. and Will Reynolds' mother, Nancy Jane Cox Reynolds.

Since the opening day of the school in 1923, when my grandmother walked in as a first-grader, I and many other members of my family have attended Nancy Reynolds. I played basketball in the best gymnasium in the county (cooler than the high schools'), had the best field in Little League baseball (which lessened the personal blow of playing left field), and was in class plays in the auditorium (the school's centerpiece).

In 1930, the Reynolds Foundation paid for the construction of two wings adjoining the original building. During the Depression, Will Reynolds, R.J.'s younger brother, covered the costs for an additional month of school in order for Nancy Reynolds to become accredited. In the 1950s, the foundation financed and built the school's freestanding gymnasium and built and equipped the large agricultural building. A memorial gift that still provides for the school today is a $25,000 endowment set up after the death of Kate Bitting Reynolds, Will's wife, with the yearly dividends to be used solely for the upkeep of grounds, exterior beautification projects and playground equipment. The endowment's total value is now more than three-quarters of a million dollars and easily supports its intended use.

Yes, Stokes County contributed to the school's existence, too. It purchased the original parcel of land. It built a cafeteria in the late '50s. In 1976-1977, the county enlarged classrooms, lowered ceilings, replaced windows, installed carpet and so on. Salaried county maintenance workers were largely used instead of an outside construction company, which saved the county some money -- then.

Fast-forward to 2008, and a Stokes County engineer hired by the school board has found significant structural problems underneath Nancy Reynolds School, problems that have the board carefully discussing the option of tearing it down and rebuilding a new school building in its place -- this time, with county money.

According to a Jan. 24 article in the Journal, the relatively new school superintendent, Stewart Hobbs, said "There's only so much you can do with an old building…. Sometimes you can keep doing things for patchwork and what happens is you're doing more to fix and renovate the building than build a new one." For those who listen to Hobbs, I must point out that it may also be cheaper to replace a 1920s brick bungalow with a steel building on a slab rather than doing a few necessary repairs.

Yes, Nancy Reynolds School is 85 years old -- which, for a fair reference, is the same age as Winston-Salem's flagship public high school, R.J. Reynolds. Both Nancy Reynolds and R.J. Reynolds schools were built with the generous funding of the same philanthropic source. Many years of lacking proper county-provided maintenance is the obvious culprit in the case of Nancy Reynolds' current state of disrepair. The work that the building currently needs is a direct result of being overlooked by those in direct control of county school maintenance needs over the years.

Nancy Reynolds School now needs service from the county, still-outstanding service that community taxpayers have contributed to over the years, in lieu of what Stokes County didn't do in decades past to preserve what was so generously given to us. Let us hope that the school board will look at a multitude of possible solutions for Nancy Reynolds School, seeking multiple, valid sources of building restoration information and estimates before it chooses to spend millions of county dollars while pushing a new -- and maybe not so generous -- school-construction agenda.

■ Strother Bullins is a music and recording-industry writer and editor. He lives in Winston-Salem.

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