Families, alumni and current and former staff strolled the halls of Midway Independent School District’s oldest school Saturday to say their farewells.
Speegleville Elementary School will close at the end of May after 72 years of educating students, a victim of cost cuts, enrollment dips and its own physical decline.
Former students recognized teachers and administrators who played a role in their education. At the Speegleville library, people sifted through books and took some home.
The district’s decision to close Speegleville comes after enrollment declines at the elementary levels and budget constraints.
Midway ISD graduate Matthew Mounce attended Speegleville from 2006 until around 2013. Mounce recalls his time at the school fondly. He was able to meet lifelong friends during his time at the elementary school.
Stepping back into his former elementary school, Mounce noticed the difference in size.
“Now the ceilings feel a little bit lower as I’m a little bit taller,” Mounce said. “But I remember mainly all the staff, people that poured into me to grow me into the person here today. So that’s been cool. It’s been very nice to reconnect with them too, and get to see all the familiar faces and have everybody under one roof again. It’s been a blast.”
He has mixed feelings about the closure of his former school.
“Nostalgic and bittersweet for sure, knowing this place isn’t going to be educating people as the way that I was fortunate enough to is kind of saddening,” Mounce said.
“This school was the reason that I was able to come to Midway and be a student at Midway because I was so far away from all the other campuses. This was the one that allowed me to be a Midway student. Yes, I was definitely surprised, but I understand why. It’s just, it’s been here, it served its purpose.”
Visiting with Mounce was a longtime friend he met at Speegleville, Heath Tucker. Tucker remembered getting to keep a book for a week as part of the birthday book club.
On Saturday, he found two of his former birthday book club books. One book from 2011/2012 and one from 2009/2010.
“I was fortunate to find both of them,” Tucker said.
Stepping back into the halls of Speegleville brought a sense of nostalgia for Tucker.
“Everything feels so small,” Tucker said. “Walking in this library, it’s crazy. Walking through the halls, looking at old classrooms and the doors you’d walk through recess and the gym is crazy.”
Tucker remembers the anti-drug lessons of the DARE program, diabetes awareness and the “amazing field days.” His favorite part was gym, and his favorite teacher was Ms. Springsteen.
“I feel they should have wanted this school to be open longer,” Tucker said. “There’s just so much history here and I really wish Midway would do their part, but that’s up to them.”
Former Speegleville principal Walter Drake spent all his education career at the elementary school. After graduating from Baylor University in 1966, Drake began working as a teacher. From 1972 to 2007, Drake oversaw the elementary school as principal.
Speegleville was part of Speegleville ISD before being consolidated into Midway ISD in November 1979.
The school started in the Speegleville community as a small schoolhouse with two rooms.
The school was moved to its current building in 1962, when the old school was about to be flooded by the expansion of Lake Waco.
“They just had this gym and six classrooms, a library, a cafeteria and an office,” Drake said,
Since the consolidation, Midway ISD added sections to Speegleville including adding hallways, more classrooms, restrooms and a new cafeteria. Drake remembers when the cafeteria was added around 1995. He remembers thinking it was a big cafeteria due to the smaller one the school previously had. The previous cafeteria became the music room.
“I thought I could put a blimp in here, because I remember on Interstate 45 the Goodyear Blimp hangar was down there,” Drake said. “I thought, I could do something with this room.”
Although Drake is sad about the closure, he has seen things change in his hometown and around him in Waco.
“I believe the students here will go to Woodway Elementary and to South Bosque Elementary and they will get good education, the best they could get,” Drake said.
