One last look at BEHS

A last look at the Box Elder High School that most of us will remember is caught in over 100 photos taken last year by our fellow classmate Ray Friess. I saw a post on Facebook from Ray mentioning that he had taken the photos and I asked him how he came to take them and this is what he told me.
Bob Holmes
 

Bob:
I actually made two different trips to take the pictures, separated by several months apart.
I wanted to document as much as I could what "our" school looked like when we attended and graduated.
To be honest, I'm one of those who have never been happy with the decision to demolish it. I first heard about the possibility a few years ago from a friend who was a junior when we were seniors. While I was in Brigham one day I went to the school during the summer break and talked to one of the women in the office to confirm whether the rumor I'd heard was true or not. She told me about the bond that had recently passed and explained that there was not one building code that the school met anymore. For instance, the room where they had all the computers, she said, had only one electrical outlet for all the computers in the room. One outlet was all that was needed when we were in school when computers didn’t exist, but it wasn’t sufficient anymore. She said the building wouldn’t meet asbestos codes, electrical codes, plumbing codes
or any other code. Also, the school was in violation of Title 2 of federal regs because there wasn’t separate ball diamonds for the boys and the girls.

I know it would have cost more to bring the building up to code than to build the new one, but I feel that there is just no sense of "history" anymore. The answer always seems to be "tear it down and build some new monstrosity." But, that's just my own thoughts ... maybe I'm just getting old (grin).

So, anyhow, I decided I wanted to shoot every bit of the school that I could before they would in effect...like the song says... "take paradise and put up a parking lot."

I'm a bit whimsical I guess, but with so much of "our" Brigham being torn down and burned down (remember the old Armory which was used as a recreation facility, and the old junior high building where we had our all night graduation party?) and so many other places all vanishing, it seemed like the thing to do to was shoot as many pictures as I could ... so I did.

One thing I've always been sad about is that we never had a chance to hold one of our reunions AT the school.

Ray

 
Thanks Ray! Your story shows your determination through the photos and will make a great photo history...

Bob

Demolition photos Taken by Barbara and Bob