 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
School celebrates its new arts center
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE, Times Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG -- This weekend has been one of celebration for Shorecrest Preparatory School. Students had their inaugural performance in the school's new arts and media center Saturday. The previous day it was dedicated, a ceremony attended by St. Petersburg native and Hollywood producer, Steven Reuther, who had flown in for the event. Also present was television anchor John Wilson, whose Broadway actor son, Patrick, got his start at the prestigious school. The arts and media center is just one component of the $16-million expansion and renovation effort the school, at 5101 First St. NE, launched three years ago. Work is expected to be complete in the fall of 2004. Shorecrest will then have a practically new campus. "Our plan for redesigning of the campus began seven years ago," said head of school Mary Booker. "It was born out of the necessity to house the programs we had built." For example, she said, the new arts and media center, "was just a needed facility. We had built a tremendous fine arts and humanities program, but we didn't have anywhere to conduct that program. We did not have an auditorium or theater or adequate classrooms to conduct that program and our library was becoming inadequate." Ms. Booker added that the goal of the expansion was not to increase enrollment at Shorecrest, which has students from preschool to grade 12. "The plan is to design facilities to accommodate the needs of the programs we have developed over the years and accommodate the enrollment we have now," she said. "Our goal is not to become a much larger school. We believe that somewhere in the range of where we are now -- we are about 932 -- anywhere between 932 and 1,000, is a nice size for a school in order for it to be a good community where everyone knows everyone else." Shorecrest, which prides itself in being the state's oldest independent day school, was founded in 1923 by northerner Florence D. Stern, who served the offspring of St. Petersburg's winter visitors. In the 1930s the school came under the ownership of Emma K. Vinal. Her daughter, Carleen Vinal Haskell, after whom the school's new library is named, became principal in 1946. The school moved to its present site in the late 1960s and became a not-for-profit independent institution in 1975. Today the simple one-story buildings visible from First Street NE are being augmented by modern structures and soon will be replaced. Work in the past three years has included the creation of new athletic fields, a new fifth and sixth grade complex, the upgrading of the seventh and eighth grade complex and the new arts and media center. Officially known as the Raymund Arts and Media Center, it honors Tech Data chief executive officer Steve Raymund and his wife, Sonia, Shorecrest parents and major donors to the facility. Thursday afternoon workers were busy putting finishing touches to the center in preparation for that evening's reception for about 150 people who had made significant financial contributions to the building. In the library, which opened at the beginning of the school year, students wearing Shorecrest's signature green and khaki uniforms worked quietly. On the stage of the new theater, the intermediate band rehearsed. That afternoon, Ms. Booker and associate head Jeff Pratt, who is coordinating the school's expansion and renovation program, conducted a tour of the center. It includes a 600-seat theater, music studio, black box theater, two libraries, a student center and fine arts gallery, whose opening exhibit is from the University of South Florida's Graphicstudio. The theater honors Janet Root, a parent who began a small fine arts class at the school more than quarter of a century ago and developed it into an academic program that brings writers, drama troupes, dancers, musicians and visual artists to Shorecrest. As she showed off the new facilities, Ms. Booker noted that the school had been strategic in planning its expansion and renovation. Work was begun at the back of its 28-acre property, with construction of new buildings and athletic fields, and is moving toward the front, where the lower school is housed. These older buildings -- built in the 1960s -- will be demolished. Construction is expected to begin next June. Meanwhile, students will be relocated to temporary classrooms in the newly built arts and media center, Ms. Booker said. Friday morning, though, it was time to celebrate work already completed. "This is a dream that we've had for years and this weekend our dream came true," Ms. Booker told an assembly of more than 1,000 students and guests.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times South Pinellas desks |
