HAMILTON — School officials were devastated two years ago when a student started a fire that gutted the basement music room and closed Wilson Junior High. Classes temporarily moved to Hamilton High School, where a double session schedule had to be invoked.

        All that was put aside Thursday when the community gathered at the school for dedication of a 20,000-square-foot, $3.2 million addition and renovation project that included separate vocal and instrumental music rooms, a media center and four science classrooms.

        “Look how far we've come,” said outgoing Wilson Principal Tracey Miller. “I'm so proud to see the community I was born and raised in pull together like I've never seen anyone pull together. It's unbelievable we're here.”

        Perhaps the biggest support the school received — besides donations of musical instruments from schools across the Tristate — was the offer from Donna and Ralph “Pat” Carruthers to pay for a fine arts wing. A plaque designating the two-room music suite the Carruthers Music Center hangs in the hallway of the suite. The Carruthers' generosity allowed the district to put money from a 1999 bond issue — passed nine months after the fire — toward other projects.

        Hamilton High School student Katie Patterson was a seventh-grader when the fire was set. She said she's disappointed she won't be able to benefit fully from the renovation and improvements made in the past two years.

        Allison just ended her third year performing with the Wilsonaires show music group.

        Science department chairman Ken Sturgill is pleased with the renovation of two outdated science classrooms and the addition of four other labs. Each has six sinks, an eye-washing station, hooded vents, science tables with computer ports, ample locked storage and glass-lined pipes leading to a chemical waste container.

        “I'm just tickled to death,” Mr. Sturgill said. “These compare to college level labs.”

        Hamilton Board of Education President Larry Bowling had just one thing to say: “From ashes, many good things have come. This is the first of many ribbon cuttings.”
       

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