Community efforts benefit Homestead
MILL CREEK — There is gold in the Tygart Valley, but not the kind requiring a pick and axe. It is not an ore acquired by bending and scraping, but more the sort easily mined from its inhabitants when a need arises in the community.
“The hearts of the people in this region are solid gold,” said Tom Rennix as he stood among dozens of busy volunteers scurrying about Tygarts Valley High School during Saturday’s Blow the Roof Off Concert fundraiser for nearby Homestead School.
Recent high winds lifted a section of the gymnasium roof on the elementary school threatened last year with closure by the Randolph County Board of Education, igniting efforts organized by the Tygart Valley Homestead Association to raise matching funds toward grant money for repairs.
The school has been closed temporarily until estimates for asbestos abatement and roof repair are submitted to the insurance company. Pre-K students are currently attending Beverly Elementary, and grades K-5 are attending either George Ward Elementary or Tygarts Valley Middle School. All displaced students remain with their original teachers and classmates at this time.
Rennix, president of the 501c3 nonprofit TVHA, cited the “amazing cooperation between an active community and very wonderful corporate and business sponsors” in making the full day of concerts possible. Sponsors included C & J’s Restaurant, The Hump Par Mar, Tygarts Valley Sanitation, Clara Belle’s Restaurant, and Pepsi Cola and Seneca Designs of Elkins.
Groups donating their musical talent included Appalachian Mountain Dulcimer, Jesse Peck, Mary Bennett, Piece Brown and Company, Tommy Oldaker, Glen & Linda Isner, Jason Hall, and Cheat Mountain Homesteaderz.
Placed on the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia’s Endangered Properties list in 2016, Homestead School has served Tygart Valley children in the Dailey, East Dailey, and Valley Bend area for nearly eight decades. Built in 1939 as part of the Roosevelt Administration’s Tygart Valley Homestead Project, its strong historical significance contributed heavily to the BOE’s decision in December to allow the school to remain in operation.
In its February posting of West Virginia Endangered Properties Updates, PAWV declares Homestead School as being eligible for grants “to help fund much-needed structural and maintenance repairs and replacements – such as for the roof and for new electrical and plumbing systems, as well as modern upgrades.”
Danielle Parker, executive director of PAWV, lists the Development Grant and possibly Endangered Properties funds through the state as avenues for funding the needed repairs. PAWV is currently helping the Randolph County BOE in making the applications.
Dailey Post Office clerk, Maggie Bennett, cites her family’s attachment to Homestead School that spans generations. Her husband, then her children, and now her granddaughter have all attended the school built as part of the largest successful resettlement program in West Virginia established to meet the needs of desperate families during the Depression era.
“The teachers there are so genuine; they care about the kids so much,” Bennett said. “And the support we have received from the businesses and citizens has touched us deeply,” she added about the donations of food, supplies, talent, and money.
PAWV’s sentiments match Bennett’s in that they, too, expressed concern for the plight of the remarkable school owned by the United States Department of Agriculture but leased long-term to the Randolph County BOE.
“We care about this school not only for its historic significance but for what it represents for the community,” Parker stated.
“We want the kids to be able to go back to their school in the fall, and we feel the grants that are available will help make this possible,” she added.
For more information on TVHA membership or to make a donation toward the goal of matching grant funds, contact the Tygart Valley Homestead Association at P. O. Box 115, Dailey, WV, 26259.