Students seeking community help to gather stories, artifacts from Gentry Intermediate School building

GENTRY — A group of young Gentry students is putting technology to work to memorialize a school facility which will soon be going away. Using technology made available to them through EAST Initiative, seven fifth-grade students are at work to gather history and memories related to the current classroom and student center facility at the Gentry Intermediate School, a building slated to be demolished to make room for a new classroom facility.

The students are seeking to interview area residents who attended classes in the facility in years past, including those times the building was the home of other grade levels in the Gentry school system.

At work on the project are Zade Younes, Tucker Hodges, Kaden Morgan, Ethan Wilkins, Isaac Stell, Cary Tromp and Colton Elam. Included in the project which the students developed on their own are making a 3D model of the building, gathering photos of the building

and events and people there, making an iMovie slide presentation on the building and gathering and compiling people’s memories of the building and events which took place there over the building’s history.

Some of the items students are requesting include such things as photographs, T-shirts, sports jerseys, trophies, class rings, class songs and other artifacts connected to the school structure. The students said the items would be scanned, copied or photographed and then returned to their owners.

To gather stories, the stu- dents would like to set up some interviews inside the building with area residents with stories to tell about the building. Plans are for a student to do the interviewing and another student to video record it. Those with stories to tell about the building are urged to contact the students by calling the EAST Initiative classroom at Gentry Elementary School at 479-736-2380, ext. 25.

The students were also working on setting up a Google form URL for people to use to submit stories and photos online. The URL will be published in the Eagle Observer as soon as it becomes available.

Dorothy Ivey is the facilitator for the EAST Initiative at the Intermediate and Primary levels.

Photo by Randy Moll A group of Gentry fifth-grade students, guided by EAST Initiative facilitator Dorothy Ivey, are seeking stories and artifacts from the community related to the Gentry School District’s Intermediate School structure.