Feasibility study being conducted on Sumner School property | News, Sports, Jobs


(Picture by Evan Bevins)
The remaining structure of the previous Sumner School is noticed Thursday on Avery Avenue in Parkersburg. A feasibility review has been commissioned to help identify what can be completed with the internet site of the very first free of charge school for African Individuals south of the Mason-Dixon line.

PARKERSBURG — A feasibility research is underway to decide what could come subsequent for the previous Sumner School and Sumnerite Museum.
The Avery Road home was the internet site of the to start with totally free college for African Us citizens south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
The previous gymnasium, which continue to stands, served as a museum, tutoring middle and group collecting room for yrs.
But it has not been open regularly for approximately a 10 years right after intruders broke in and stole roughly $17,000 really worth of copper pipes and fittings.
The roof is in want of significant restore, and the building faces other issues ahead of it can be utilized again.
Parkersburg Substantial School alumni Tom and Ann Northrup, now dwelling in Virginia, realized about the building’s struggles and arrived at out to previous classmate Toni Oliver, president of the Sumnerite Affiliation, to help.
“I just felt like it’s really crucial for Parkersburg,” reported Tom Northrup, who was the longtime headmaster at a Virginia university and has practical experience with nonprofits and fundraising. “Sumner Faculty has a excellent legacy.”
The Northrups volunteered to raise the money for a feasibility review of the composition.
“Before nearly anything can even come about, you have to have an strategy of what’s attainable,” Tom Northrup explained.
He wrote to Parkersburg Mayor Tom Joyce to request the town add half of the $20,000 value of the research. Parkersburg Metropolis Council authorized the allocation of $10,000 from the Improvement Department’s contractual providers line merchandise last week.
“I was satisfied to assist the appropriation, and I’m hopeful this hard work to revitalize or repurpose the Sumner College place will go forward with an conclude outcome that delivers an suitable honor to the Sumnerites and their record here in Parkersburg,” Joyce said.
Northrup expects the feasibility review to be finished by the stop of June. But some preliminary conclusions will be offered this weekend at a non-public event for community officers, business enterprise leaders and associates of the Sumnerite Affiliation.
“Then it comes down to the will of the leaders in Parkersburg and the leaders of the Sumnerite Association” to make anything transpire, Northrup mentioned. “It will not just sit there decaying as it has been.”
Evan Bevins can be arrived at at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.








