Troutdale Elementary: Saving wood, history, memories

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OUTLOOK PHOTO: JOSH KULLA - Bremik Construction workers removing the gym floor at Troutdale Elementary. The Troutdale Historical Scoeity hopes to also get the wood from the gym floors at Wilkes and Fairview Elementary Schools, which will also be demolished and new schools built on the sites.

OUTLOOK PHOTO: JOSH KULLA - This is a sample of what the Reynolds High School wood working class could create with the gym floor.

OUTLOOK PHOTO: JOSH KULLA - Kelly Broomall (foreground) and Sue Landreth, both volunteers with the Troutdale Historical Society remove nails from boards pulled from the gym floor at Troutdale Elementary School before the gym is taken down this week.

OUTLOOK PHOTO: JOSH KULLA - Bremik Construction worker Redgal Rawlins carries some the of boards out to the sidewalk for vounteers. The wood will be given to the Reynolds High School woodworking class. They hope to make keepsakes for people who have connections to the 1926 era Troutdale Elementary School.

OUTLOOK PHOTO: JOSH KULLA - The old gym holds a lot of memories.

OUTLOOK PHOTO: JOSH KULLA - Jeremy Symolon, the Bremik superintendent on the project, was a big help to the preservationists in the floor project.

By Teresa Carson, The Gresham Outlook (Read full article on The Outlook's site.)
July 4, 2017

A gaggle of folks from the Troutdale Historical Society gathered on a cool, overcast morning last week to salvage some of the beautiful, old wood from the gym floor at Troutdale Elementary School before the entire structure is torn down this week.

The salvaged wood will go to the woodworking and construction classes at Reynolds High School. Students will use the wood for projects, and teacher Erich Schneider hopes they will be able to construct mementos for former students and staff who want a token of their time at Troutdale Elementary.

"There is a lot of interest in having something from the school," Schneider said.

The gym is scheduled to be knocked down on Wednesday, July 5, to make way for the new Troutdale Elementary School that will be built on the site. Once the new school is built, the rest of the old building will be demolished.

Len Otto, an old hand at the Troutdale Historical Society, said a group called the school celebration committee came up with the idea of salvaging the floor and putting the wood to use. "We needed something to commemorate the service these buildings have provided us," he said.

Of the seven historical society volunteers bent over and pulling nails out of the wood, four had attended the school — one family for several generations. Two also taught at the school, which was built in 1926 and added on to several times.

Voters approved a $125 million facilities bond for the Reynolds School District in May 2015. As a result Reynolds is building three new elementary schools — Fairview, Troutdale and Wilkes — and doing a major upgrade and expansion of Reynolds High School. All Reynolds schools are getting security upgrades to make them safer for students, staff and visitors.

The Historical Society salvagers plan to take wood from the floors of all three elementary schools that are being torn down to make way for the new buildings.

Workers from Bremik Construction, the contractor for Troutdale Elementary, removed the center section of the gym floor and hauled the planks out to the sidewalk, where the volunteers from the historical society pulled the nails and loaded it on a trailer.

"Jeremy Symolon, the Bremik superintendent on the project, he has bent over backwards for us," Otto said.

Woodworking teacher Schneider looked over the boards piling up in his trailer.

"It's wood with character. Who wouldn't want that?" he said. "And it has a little history. That is the real excitement of it. I can get wood anywhere."

Schneider, who attended Troutdale as a child, clearly has his own memories of the school.

"I remember standing up on that stage doing a fourth-grade play about something or other …" his voice trailing off as he looked around his old school.