Old LVHS alums fear city failing history

Alumni of the old Las Vegas High School worry that its historic buildings will be torn down or fall down from benign neglect.

Historical preservationist Bob Stoldal is extremely upset because there has been no public input.

“We’re going to tear down Las Vegas High School without public input?” he said Monday.

The former television newsman is a 1958 graduate of what is now called the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts, a Clark County School District magnet high school for performing, visual and liberal arts.

The downtown school, bordered by Seventh and Ninth streets and Bridger and Clark avenues, opened in 1930 and represents “the beginning of organized professional education” in Las Vegas, Stoldal said. The thought of it being demolished enrages him.

“A few of us are going to chain ourselves to the door,” he vowed.

Former Nevada Gov. and U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, one of the school’s many notable graduates, said alumni will try to find out how much it would cost to restore at least the main building.

“Nobody wants to tear it down,” Bryan said. “But what happens if there’s no money to rehabilitate it?”

In a written statement, the Clark County School District said a technology upgrade was planned for the high school using money from the 2015 school bond extension, but it would have required highly intrusive trenching throughout the campus and the installation of conduit and electrical components throughout the old MORRISON,