As the working life of the Evans City Elementary/Middle School winds down, Seneca Valley School District officials are eager to commemorate its 84 years of educating students in and around the borough.

Because the district is closing the school at the end of the current school year, special events and ceremonies are planned to celebrate the school where hundreds of students learned and made lifelong memories.

To start, the district is collecting artifacts and stories from current and former students and staff that would commemorate the school, which opened on March 11, 1938, as Evans City High School.

Linda Andreassi, Seneca Valley’s director of communications, sits on the committee planning the commemoration events.

She said in addition to memorabilia and stories, the committee is looking for former students or staff members who would like to help with the effort.

Those with items or stories to donate or who want to help on the committee can fill out a district form at www.svsd.net/ECCollection.

Andreassi said the events to celebrate the school will begin in the weeks leading up to the end of the school year.

“We look forward to opening our EC doors to past and present families and staff as well as the community, prior to the end of the school year, so they will have the chance to walk the halls and take pictures before we officially close,” Andreassi said. “We are also looking at special in-school activities for current students and possibly offering some takeaways and memorabilia.”

She said the committee plans to create an Evans City school time capsule, which will be placed inside a wall at the new Ehrman Crest Elementary/Middle School.

“There is still some planning that needs to take place before we can confirm more details, but we’ll be sure to share them with the community as soon as they are finalized,” Andreassi said.

Regarding the fate of the building in Evans City after it closes, Andreassi said the district has not yet made a decision.

“However, we anticipate collecting school and community input on this in the near future,” she said.

The history of the school shows it to have been a much-needed and important feature in Evans City.

After being built in 1938 and dedicated as Evans City High School before the advent of school districts, the building received its first addition in 1944.

The new elementary school, now known as “Complex B,” was completed in 1953.

The “shop wing,” or one-story section of “Complex A,” was added in 1958 and was followed the next year with the cafeteria wing as well as “Complex C,” once a separate building.

An addition and renovation project in 1989 added 54 new rooms, including two music rooms, a computer room, a lobby and elevator and library and library support rooms.

With several major additions to the front wing and areas between the wings, the school is now configured to handle distributions of grades separately in each wing with all grades using a central core of shared facilities such as the library, health suite, cafeteria, music and art rooms, and computer room.

Evans City Mayor Dean Zinkhann has fond memories of Evans City High School, where he strode across the auditorium stage in 1962 in his senior cap and gown to collect his diploma.

Zinkhann played basketball and football as an Evans City Ram, and recalls an atmosphere of camaraderie and happiness among students of all grade levels at that time.

He recalls the excitement of attending prom in the gym that spring.

“Everyone got along so well, and everyone liked each other,” Zinkhann said. “I’ve got so many great memories there.”

Zinkhann fears the school, which needs so many repairs that it would be cost-prohibitive for the district, will be sold and a drug or alcohol rehabilitation facility will buy it.

He has heard rumors about Seneca Valley’s intentions for the building, but has not heard anything concrete from the district.

“It’s just a sad situation, but I know they need changes and it’s for the future,” Zinkhann said, “but I hate to see it.”

He called the building a “historic landmark” in Evans City.

“So many of us went through there,” Zinkhann said. “It’s a shame, really.”

Regina “Reggie” Sharbaugh of Leechburg, Armstrong County, graduated from Evans City High School in 1963, as Regina Luttrell.

Like Zinkhann, she is sad the building will no longer be a school come spring, but understands it is in a state of disrepair too advanced to be addressed by the district.

“It’s been 60 years since I graduated from there, so I’m sure it needs a little work,” Sharbaugh said with a chuckle.

She made many of her memories playing trumpet in the school’s marching band.

“So I remember a lot about football games and the bleachers,” Sharbaugh said.

She recalled that miniskirts were coming into style then, much to the consternation of the principal.

“They made us kneel in the hallway and if our skirts didn’t touch the floor, they made us go home,” Sharbaugh recalled. “I had to go home a couple of times.”

She said she will donate her three yearbooks from the early 1960s if the committee is interested in them.

“They can definitely have them,” Sharbaugh said.

Pat Schoeffel Capella of Evans City is a classmate of Zinkhann’s who recalls her time as a cheerleader at Evans City High.

“I have my old jacket,” Capella said of the Evans City High memorabilia she has kept. “I was going to give it to the historical society, but now I’ll have to see.”

She said the Classes of ‘62 and ‘63 hold a class reunion every five years, during which they share many memories of the school.

“We had great times at that school, but I guess it needs a lot of repairs,” Capella said.

She recalled raucous pep rallies at the end of each week as students anticipated the Friday night football games.

Pep rallies included hundreds of students holding hands and traversing Main Street in the borough, lighting bonfires and hanging effigies of the competing school’s coach.

“Sometimes we had a wooden box for a casket,” Capella recalled in amazement. “Can you imagine that now?”

She said Mars and Zelienople high schools were the Rams’ biggest rivals.

Capella summed up the thoughts of many former students of the school in Evans City.

“We had a lot of good times,” she said.

Evans City school has been an integral part of the community for decades.

Emily Ladd, who is president of the Parent-Teacher Organization at the school, said the school has been an integral part of the community for decades.

She is glad the district is planning events and collecting memorabilia to commemorate the school.

“Generations of families have built friendships, volunteered, and learned within the walls of this building,” Ladd said. “We need to honor the memories made here at Evans City because it is part of the fabric of our children’s lives, and our community.”

Seneca Valley is currently in the process of building the new Ehrman Crest Elementary/Middle School in Cranberry Township, which will supplant Evans City Elementary/Middle School. Principals from Evans City helped place the new school’s first beam in May.