Watch for Grand Opening of 41st Season
In the New Auditorium at Huntsville High
(Bookmark This Site for Announcements)

By KEITH CLINES
Times Staff Writer kclines@htimes.com

T 

hev'd traveled to virtually every corner of the world for more

than 40 years. On Tuesday night, members of the Kiwanis Club of Huntsville's travelogue series took  the people in the Huntsville High School auditorium to the tropical South Sea island of Bali and the Spice Islands.
The travelogue is possibly the last leg of a long trip for the existing Huntsville High as the site of commu­nity events. Demolition on the school will begin within six weeks, and the entire building will probably be gone by September.

Mary Evelyn French, who has lived in Huntsville since 1963, has senti­mental ties to the 50-year-old school.

She has been attending the Kiwanis travelogue series in the auditorium for 20 years, and her two daughters, Cindy McCullough and Tomalyn Dombrowski, graduated from Huntsville High.

Bob Gathany/Huntsville Times

The travelogue intermission features a cake celebrating the 40th anniversary of the travelogue series - and the last one to be shown in the old Huntsville High School auditorium.

"This is a wonderful program," French said before entering the audi­torium for the film and discussion of Bali. "It's always been so nice to come

to programs here. We attended `Annie' here recently."
The auditorium - with plastic, unpadded seats, concrete block walls

painted blue on the bottom half and white up to the ceiling, and a crimson curtain on stage - was the site of many

Please see SHOW on A4

Show

Continual from page Al

community events before the Von Braun Center was built in the early 1970s.

School Principal Jan Harris earlier Tuesday said the Broad-way Theatre League and the Huntsville Community Chorus staged their events in the audi­torium years ago. The Huntsville Youth Orchestra still uses it for some Sunday after-noon programs.

Harris said she remembers when she was a teacher at Gris­som High School that school plays were held in the Huntsville High auditorium because Grissom didn't have an

auditorium. Butler High School also held school plays at Huntsville High for the same reason.

But, not to fear. The auditori­um in the new Huntsville High, which is under construction just south of the existing school, will be available for community events, Harris said. In fact, she said, more groups might be interested in renting it than the existing auditorium.

"It will be the newest in equipment,^" Harris said. "be anticipate still hosting commu­nity events because we're so centrally located."

The Kiwanis Club, which has never held its travelogue any-where besides the school's audi­torium, will be among the groups using the new auditori­um when the 41st year of the

travelogue begins Oct. 5 with "Bavaria and the Black Forest."

'We're already scheduled in there," said Kim Keller of the club's travelogue committee.

For French, one aspect of the new auditorium will be wel­comed. 'The seats will be more comfortable," she said.

The travelogue series con­sists of six programs each year with an average audience of 250. It is among several projects Kiwanis sponsors each year to raise money for service projects aimed primarily at youths.

Each travelogue program is about a specific world locale with a film and a speaker who gives travel, cultural and other information.

We've got a corps of people who are here year after year after year," said Charles Urban, president-elect of the Kiwanis Club.

Construction timetable

Demolition of the school will begin with the lunchroom. Bill Thomson of JH Partners Archi­tecture and Interiors said Tues­day he hopes work on the cafe­teria can begin no later than May 18, and demolition on the southern half of the school can begin by June 16. The entire building and foundation must be gone before Sept. 24.

Thomson said the entire project should be completed a couple of weeks before the deadline.

existing school will become a parking lot, and the northern half eventually will be turned into soccer fields.

^"They^'re going to start as soon as school is out," Harris said of the demolition. "May 21st we have to have everything packed up.^"

Graduation this year is May 21. The school office will be open the week after graduation, but no one will be allowed upstairs or in other parts of the school, she said.

The senior class will have a ceremony, possibly a candle-light vigil, the last week of school, and the class will pay to erect a marker on the former school site, Harris said. The fac­ulty and staff will hold a farewell dinner.

plans to sell the old bricks from the school, or to hold an open house or walk-through for the public in the new building.

Col. Bryan Bennett, who leads the school's Air Force Junior ROTC program, plans to sell U.S. flags that will be run up the flagpole on the last day of school. The 3-by-5-foot flags will be sold for $40 each and will come with a certificate of authenticity and a picture of ROTC cadets in uniform fold­ing the flag.

For more information about the ROTC flag sale, call 428-8061 or e-mail Bennett at bbennett@hsv.k12.al us.