SCPS Celebrates 50th!
www.savcps.com, 9/19/01

How about 12 buses with full police escort, 8 tents, 22 tables with tablecloths, 200 balloons, 2000 imprinted napkins, 19 sheet cakes, 1800 drinks, 50 pounds of ice, 15 coolers, 2 porta-potties, 6 cans of line marking paint, 55 volunteers, a bullhorn and a mobile crane!

That’s how you gather together all of the SCPS school family for the celebration of the half-century! To commemorate our 50th Anniversary, the entire school gathered together on September 19th, 2001 on the soccer field of the Chatham Parkway campus for an unforgettable image. In the picture above are more than 1800 students (from Daycare through 12th grade), faculty, staff and board members, plus Mrs. Harold Deane Akins and Mr. Elmo Weeks, who have been associated with the school since its founding on September 17, 1951.

It was a beautiful morning, warm with a slight breeze as students from the DeRenne campus arrived and all filed onto the field. Each homeroom found its pre-determined marks on the field, filling each letter and number with amazing precision. What appeared as a mass of “bunched up” humanity from the ground emerged as wonderfully-formed letters and numbers when viewed from the mobile crane high above the crowd.

After the photograph, the entire assembly sang, “Happy Birthday, “ led by Mrs. Jean Griffin, while Mrs. Akins cut the first piece of birthday cake. Tents decorated with colorful balloons were set up around the perimeter of the field so that cake and juice could be served by grade level. Students, teachers and staff lingered a while to enjoy the refreshments and then returned to class. According to one third grader, “It was awesome to see how many kids are in the whole school, and we even got dessert before lunch!” All in all, a day to remember!