Springdale High School alumni to say goodbye to D-Wing

For Glenna Renaldi and Vickie Roolf, the thought of Springdale Junior-Senior High School's D-Wing playing host to its last dance this week is bittersweet.

The pair attended "sock hops" in the building about 50 years ago and still fondly recall how boys and girls stood on opposite sides of the gym for most of the night.

"You would stand around and hope one of the boys would ask you to dance," Roolf said.

"Then, five minutes before it ended, everybody would start dancing," Renaldi added.

The school's D-Wing, which was constructed about 1929 and served as the former high school, will be razed in the coming months. Because it hadn't been renovated since 1978 and needed costly repairs, school directors decided to replace it with a two-story addition.

"You have to face the reality that the building wasn't going to last forever," said Roolf, alumni association secretary and member of a committee responsible for planning a D-Wing open house set for Friday.

Renaldi, a school director, said it was cheaper for the district to build the addition because D-Wing needed extensive repairs and renovations.

School directors borrowed more than $18 million to renovate the school. Construction began early last year.

"The building holds a lot of memories for me," Renaldi said.

She recalled that she was in the D-Wing gym when her class learned President Kennedy was shot.

Renaldi said she routinely runs into people who have fond memories of D-Wing: "It surprising how many people have said, 'You can't tear that building down.'"

"A lot of people have find memories of D-Wing," high school Principal Josh Weaver said. "A lot of what we'll be doing (Friday) is sharing some of those memories."