WEST ALEXANDRIA — Twin Valley Community Local Schools has been working hard to renovate the campus to honor the history of the district. One way school officials chose to do this was by renaming and repainting the hallways after the schools which came before Twin Valley South.
Hallways became color coded and broken into zones. There are now Tiger Hallways, Bulldog Hallways, and Panther Hallways.
There is now one more color-coded hallway to take note of: the Ag Ed Hallway, complete with student-painted FFA emblem.
During the board of education meeting on Monday, Feb. 26, Superintendent Bob Fischer took all in attendance on a tour of the school. The tour included the Ag Ed Hallway.
He said, “Everybody knows we put a lot of time into brightening and livening the building up, making it friendlier for everybody. Of course, we’ve done all the red and grey and there are a lot of other colors.”
Fischer added, FFA Advisor Alison Derringer reached out to him a week ago with an idea to decorate the Ag Ed Hallway. She reported the hallway was painted during FFA Week 2018 as a way to recognize past and future State and American FFA Degree earners. However, at this time the hallway is a work in progress.
“It was a student’s idea. They said there were stripes in the hallway for Panthers, so why not stripes for FFA, since we’re down here all the time anyway. We also have in our classroom a Green Hand Wall, so when kids get their first level of membership — called Green Hand — they put their hands on the wall in green paint,” Derringer said.
“There are also other levels and those are big honors when you receive those. So, we’re thinking that once the paint for the striping is finished, we will put hands on the wall for every State and American FFA Degree earner in Twin Valley South history.”
In the weeks to come, they will be asking past TVS degree recipients to come to the school to put their hand on the wall, marking their achievement as a part of Twin Valley Community Local Schools history, Derringer said.
She added, “We hope this serves as a great way to honor those individuals hard work as well as honor our history within the community and the FFA organization. We are grateful to Jeff Tully, Peggy Burke, and FFA members Austin Baker and Nathan Espey for taking charge of the painting.”
She noted, Baker and Espey will continue to work on this project as part of their Ag Capstone course. The FFA emblem was actually painted by FFA member Gabbi Cooper this past summer.
