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Cedar Key mourns its four-classroom school, an institution in the Levy County island town.
By ALEX LEARY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 27, 2002
CEDAR KEY -- Like many of the men on his volunteer fire department, Chief James McCain grew up in this rural Gulf Coast town and attended school at the top of Whiddon Avenue.
"My mama put five of us through here, and I put three young'uns through here myself," the 43-year-old said Tuesday, a smile breaking his weary face, streaked with sweat and soot. "This school is the heartbeat of Cedar Key."
Not far from where McCain spoke, firefighters inspected the black and twisted remnants of Cedar Key High School.
All four classrooms in what is believed to be Florida's smallest public high school, with fewer than 100 students, burned during a fire that began late Monday.
The blaze, watched by hundreds into the early morning, also claimed administrative offices and the auditorium, where $4,000 worth of decorations for next month's prom were stored.
FCAT tests, to be taken next week, were torched. Textbooks, computers and official records were lost. Classes were canceled, as was Tuesday night's baseball game against St. John's.
Above all, this tightknit community of 790 lost an institution.
"All my memories are in there," said Karri Campbell, a 2000 graduate whose mother is a substitute teacher. "To see it go up, it hits you hard. I'm so loyal to this school."
Her cousin, 18-year-old Emiley Campbell, stood next to her, gazing at the charred remains beyond the open front door of the school.
The senior class president, Emiley helped rescue records from a separate administrative building threatened by flames jumping 40 feet. "I've never been so scared in my life," she said.
The fire began about 9:40 p.m. Monday and appeared to originate near the auditorium, said Jennifer Langston, an investigator with the state Fire Marshal's Office.
There was talk Tuesday that a boiler had exploded, but Langston said a cause had not been determined.
"Arson is a possibility and at this point we haven't been able to rule it out," she said. "But we haven't been able to rule out any accidental causes, either."
Whatever the cause, it could have been much worse. Firefighters from across Levy County prevented the flames from spreading to the middle school, elementary school and library, which are in separate buildings on the same campus. No one was injured. Damage was estimated at more than $1-million.
The investigation and cleanup are expected to last several days, and classes for all grades have been canceled until at least Thursday.
Teachers and administrators met Tuesday afternoon to work out plans to hold classes in the gymnasium and library until portable classrooms arrive.
"I've taught in that building for 17 years, so it's very upsetting," said mathematics teacher Sue Ice. "All of my materials I've accumulated and created are all gone."
This is not the first time Cedar Key has lost a school. In the early 1940s, a blaze destroyed the high school, which was rebuilt in 1950.
Don Richburg, a member of the class of 1955, watched the first school burn as a small boy. His wife called him with the news Tuesday. "No, not again," he recalled saying.
"It's tragic," he said standing at the school's entrance. "There's a lot of memories in that building. We were all so close."
That sense of community has not faded with time, students and former students say. The quaint shops on Dock Street may keep Cedar Key alive financially, but it is the bonds fostered in the classroom and the fields that give the place a sense of community.
Part of that is driven by geography. Located at the end of State Road 24, a two-lane highway that stretches 25 miles from U.S. 19, Cedar Key is far from any city.
"It's like an hour away if we want to go see a movie in Gainesville," said 17-year-old senior Chase Nelson, eating a chicken salad sandwich at Red Luck Cafe.
Stephanie Campbell, a junior, stood at the back of the auditorium Tuesday afternoon. She watched in seeming disbelief as firefighters hauled away piles of charred debris.
As class president, she led fundraising efforts for the prom decorations, selling doughnuts and other concessions at basketball games. "Everything you worked for, it's pointless," she said.
If there was one ray of hope in the day, it was this: Long after the crowds had left and the hoses had been put away, a man walked out of the school and reported that the trophy case had somehow been spared.
The legacy of the Cedar Key Sharks would survive.