Cookeville, Tennessee Elementary School Makes Transition After Fire

The Hooper Eblen Center in Cookeville, Tennessee, is the home of Tennessee Tech basketball and the main offices for the university's athletic program. This is the scene at the arena on Monday, March 19, 2007 as students from Jere Whitson Elementary School nearby began a week of classes here. The elementary school was destroyed by fire on Saturday morning, March 17, 2007.

The scene inside the Eblen Center on Monday morning, March 19, 2007 as students from the burned Jere Whitson Elementary School make the transition and begin a week of classes here. Starting the week of March 26th, the students will begin a split day of classes in another nearby elementary school.

All pictures courtesy of WTVF-TV Nashville, Tenn.




Students from the fire-ravaged Jere Whitson Elementary School made the transition Monday morning after a fire destroyed their school Saturday morning.

The faculty of the school, and nearly 400 students moved to the campus of nearby Tennessee Tech University for a week of classes. Most classes are being held in the Hooper Eblen Center, an arena that holds the main offices for the university's athletics program, and is better known as the home arena for Tennessee Tech men's and women's basketball.

The transition seemed to go well under the circumstances, and aid poured in from all across the community. Local churches, radio stations, businesses, individuals, and others took up school supplies and other items for the people of Jere Whitson. Tennessee Tech is lending the facilities to the school for this week, and is taking up donations of school supplies. Chartwells, the managers of the university's food services, has set up a lounge area inside the Eblen Center for teachers and faculty of the school.

Starting next week, the Jere Whitson staff and students will begin a split day with students and staff from the nearby Sycamore Elementary. Sycamore students will study from 7 AM until 12 noon, while the students of Jere Whitson will study from noon until 5 PM. This will be the setup for the foreseeable future.

The investigation is underway to determine the cause of the fire. So far, it is believed the blaze was accidental. A widely believed reason is that of faulty wiring in the older wing of the building, which was built in the 1950s. That was the section of the building where the fire apparently started, and it suffered the greatest damage.

The staff of the school likely have suffered the worst loss. Many teachers had personal book collections and other items inside which were destroyed. On a brighter note, many were glad that the school's American flag, and photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Jere Whitson were salvaged from the school. Mr. Whitson was an important early leader of the Cookeville community during the late 1800s and the early 1900s. He was the principle founder of Tennessee Tech and donated the land for Jere Whitson Elementary School during the 1920s.

For more on this story, visit the links below.

Herald-Citizen - Cookeville, Tenn.
Jere Whitson makes transition
Meeting Thursday for Whitson, Sycamore parents

WTVF-TV Nashville, Tenn.

Elementary School Destroyed By Fire In Cookeville, Tennessee

Jere Whitson Elementary School in Cookeville, Tennessee before the fire that tore through a nearly 55-year-old section of the building early Saturday morning, March 17, 2007.
Photo courtesy of Jere Whitson Elementary School







A firefighter from the Cookeville Fire Department helps to battle the blaze Saturday morning, March 17, 2007 at Jere Whitson Elementary School in north Cookeville, Tennessee. The inferno will leave nearly 400 students without a permanent place to learn for the time-being.
Photo courtesy of WTVF-TV Nashville, Tenn.





The damage is evident at Jere Whitson Elementary School in Cookeville, Tennessee on Saturday, March 17, 2007 after a fire ripped through the building, one of the oldest school buildings in Putnam County.
Photo courtesy of WTVF-TV Nashville, Tenn.
Photo taken by WTVF-TV viewer Rhonda Tomsic of Cookeville





Hooper Eblen Center, the home of Tennessee Tech University basketball and the offices of Tennessee Tech athletics. It will be a temporary home of the nearly 400 students who previously studied at the now-gutted Jere Whitson Elementary school just a few blocks away in north Cookeville, Tennessee. The school was destroyed by an early morning fire on Saturday, March 17, 2007. The students will study here for at least a week, until a better long-
term plan is decided for the students and faculty.
Photo courtesy of Tennessee Tech University




A crisis struck my home city of Cookeville, Tennessee Saturday morning as fire tore through Jere Whitson Elementary School, one of the six elementary schools in this small city of nearly 30,000 people.

No one was in the building at the time of the fire, which shot flames 40-50 feet in the air, according to eyewitnesses.

The fire began around 5 A.M. on Saturday morning and quickly spread through much of the oldest wing of the building. The school is one of the oldest in Putnam County and dates back to the 1920s.

The fire destroyed the wing with administrative offices, the computer lab, and the music room. This section of the building was gutted by the blazing inferno, of which there is no officially-known cause. The fire is being investigated. An expected cause is that of the heating system. Maintenance workers may have entered the building early to turn on the heat during this chilly weekend in the Midsouth region. Schools in Putnam County were on break the last two weeks and are scheduled to return Monday. Heating is probably the frontrunner at this time in considering causes for the fire.

The fire will now displace nearly 400 students who previously studied at Jere Whitson. The most pressing question now regards where to house that number of students, as well as the teachers who will be educating them.

Putnam County school officials met in an emergency meeting Saturday afternoon to discuss the question. It was decided that the students and faculty will meet temporally at the Hooper Eblen Center, an arena on the campus of my university, Tennessee Tech. The Eblen Center is the home for Tennessee Tech men's and women's basketball, as well as the home of offices for Tennessee Tech athletics, various Tech coaches and the Sports Information department. The students and faculty will use the basketball arena, locker rooms, and the Eagle's Nest, a meeting area on the upper floor of the Eblen Center. They are expected to be there for at least a week, until more permanent quarters are found. A likely scenario would have the students going to the five other Cookeville elementary schools, straining the student population the community has been working to solve over the past several years.

It is an honor to see my university ready to serve the community in a time of crisis for them. I myself am patriotic to Cookeville, and I want to see my fellow Cookevillians helped and made more comfortable in a time of need. It will be a test of patience, though, over the next week or so for both those of Jere Whitson, and those of the Tennessee Tech university community. For those of us who like to, or need to, use the Eblen Center on a regular basis, those privileges will be put on hold. The "Hoop" will now only be open to those from Jere Whitson or those with a pass designating that you must work at the arena. I, personally use the "Hoop" regularly to do homework, to meet people from the community walking around the concourse of the arena, and to meet with Sports Information, of whom I do some work with. The "Hoop" will re-open to the general public and students in a week or later, depending on when a more permanent location is found for the students, all in kindergarten to fourth grade.

Tennessee Tech has a strained parking situation, as most universities do. This will have an effect on this condition, as well. The commuter parking lot near the Eblen Center will have less spaces for commuting students during this period. Traffic will dramatically increase around the arena and the entrances to the university nearby. The University has already encouraged us to avoid entering the campus in those areas until further notice.

This will prove to be a good smaller example of how people react to a crisis today in America and how they are able to recover and re-build the infrastructure after a sudden disaster. I believe Americans react well. Just look to 9-11 and Mississippi, as well as parts of Louisiana after Katrina. America stood strong and re-built. This is a smaller disaster, although it is considerable here in our community. We are in the Bible Belt, and I believe the people of Cookeville, particularly in the north part of our great town, are ready to tackle this new challenge.

For more on the "Crisis in Cookeville", please visit the following coverage from media outlets.

Herald-Citizen, Cookeville, Tenn.
MAIN STORY - Cause unkown
Students will go to TTU, Sycamore

WTVF-TV, Nashville, Tenn.

WSMV-TV, Nashville, Tenn.

The Tennessean, Nashville, Tenn.

WBIR-TV, Knoxville, Tenn.

MY HOME REGION FEATURED ON SUPER BOWL AD!

While everyone's eyes were peeled at Peyton Manning during the Super Bowl this past Sunday, the ads gave the evening another Tennessee connection. Garmin, a GPS navigation systems maker, debuted their first Super Bowl ad Sunday. It is a spin on the Godzilla-style monster films and features a driver who battles "Maposaurus". A hero uses a Garmin-made navigation device to save the day, and in the process becomes "Garmin Man". However, to those of us who are here in the Upper Cumberland area of Tennessee, "Maposaurus" just might be our hero of the two.

If you look at the monster, a few county and city names are visible. The most prominent of the names is my own hometown of Cookeville, Tennessee; home to the college I attend, Tennessee Tech University. Some may say, "How do you know it is your Cookeville on the beast." I know because of the other names on the creature. On its head read the names PUTNAM (of which Cookeville is the county seat), JACKSON, and WHITE, which are all counties that border Putnam. Also mentioned are Center Hill Lake and the Cumberland River, all local water bodies. If that isn't enough, the creature's body shows other Middle Tennessee locations on it. The left arm shows "Columbia", which is a city south of Nashville, and its chest seems to show Hamilton County, where Chattanooga is located.

I live in Overton County just minutes away from Cookeville, but I consider myself a "Cookevillian", as my family has been pretty busy in this town since we moved down here 11 years ago. Plus, I am now a student here and I know many Cookeville-area natives, so I feel at home in this town approaching 30,000 in population. So, as you could expect, I am excited and proud that my hometown has been featured in front of millions of eyes during the biggest sporting event of the year. During a class at Tennessee Tech yesterday, I heard a fellow student say she heard on local radio about Cookeville being featured on a Super Bowl ad. I didn't find out until today what she was talking about. Cookeville's Herald-Citizen newspaper put the story on the cover with a photo similar to the one above. That article is among the links you can visit below.

"Super Bowl ad puts Cookeville area on the map - literally" Cookeville, Tenn. Herald Citizen

CNN Money's look at 2007 Super Bowl ads

TrailBlazer Adventure Racing Club Forum on "Maposaurus"