End of an Era

The sun rose this morning on a sad scene-- firefighters unable to quench the fire in time to save our historic Whatcom School from the flames that broke out in the early hours. Whatcom School, built in 1903, was undergoing renovations in between school hours. The unofficial theory so far is that the fire was caused by a welding gun, as there were welders working on the roof as late as 10:30PM.

The loss of Whatcom School is a tragic one for our community, as it was the oldest school in our district. It's of particular sadness to me, too. My girls would have been fifth generation students there. The school went through transformations through the years, and I had family attending school there through them all-- college (my great-grandmother), high school (my grandmother), junior high (my mother) and middle school (my sister and I).