Williamsville School Gets Bonus Points

I read something cool online this morning.  When catching up with my Buffalo News reading, I noticed a short story posted on Thursday about my alma mater, Williamsville South High School.  It was reported that the school, the cornerstone of the large school school district (which covers parts of the Town of Amherst, the Village of Williamsville, East Amherst, and borders on Cheektowaga and Clarence) had been entered on the National Registry of Historic Places.  This distinction, made for its mid-century architecture and place in the Village of Williamsville’s history, gives the school district better availability for grants and funds which can be used for preservation, building expansion, and whatever else may be available.  It was the first and only school in the district until Mill Middle was built on Mill Street near Sheridan Drive, and later Forest Elementary and then the rest of the district north of Sheridan Drive.  It’s the oldest, most historic and the most beautiful of the district’s 12 schools.

I am a 2000 graduate of South, one of three Williamsville high schools, including North and East.  South is one of three schools located in the historic Village, including Forest Elementary and Mill Middle.  I went to all three, and I can say that even at young ages, I recognized that I was attending schools with decades and generations of history in the halls.  South High School always had an Americana/Norman Rockwell thing going for it, with its classic church steeple, east and west wings, and beautiful front lawn on which graduations and parade lineups would be held.  It’s a classy building, with structure and meaning and form.  I loved going to school there every day, feeling like I was somehow being transported back to the ‘50s, somewhere around the time of “The Wonder Years.” I would hang around the bleachers with my varsity jacket and football under my right arm, and Jenny would run over in her pigtails and ask me to get a soda with her after math class.

Um, or I mean.....

I would have loved to have been graduated on the front lawn, where every other graduation ceremony was held, but it rained the day of my ceremony.  So we convened in the New Gym (a second gym was built in 1992, henceforth the “Old Gym” and the “New Gym") and laughed our way through the hottest, sweatiest, grossest graduation ceremony I had ever been part of.  It made for a great story and a great memory, if not for the alternate setting then for the hilarity of the situation.

In short, I love this school because of all that it gave me, in regards to the building and the Village heritage I was proud of, and the wonderful education I received.  I am proud to be a graduate of this fine school, and I am proud that the building is being given its historical credit.

I found these photos on this guy’s page.  They are beautiful shots and show the beauty of the building’s architecture and landscape.

Posted by on 08/04 at 02:12 PM