TALKEETNA -- Dave Stull carried a stack of files and a couple waterlogged textbooks to his car in the parking lot of Susitna Valley Junior/Senior High School on Wednesday. He'd salvaged them from what remained of the school, which was destroyed by fire Tuesday night.
"This is what's left of 20 years," he said.
Stull taught high school social studies at Su Valley, which served students in grades seven through 12. He was among a steady stream of locals who trickled through the parking lot all morning, as firefighters doused the smoldering ashes.
"It's gone, you know," Stull said. "It makes you want to cry."
Losing the school, which for 34 years served as a community cornerstone, moved many to tears, said math teacher Brenda Hogan. Hogan's son Nick, an eighth-grader, stared blankly at the ruins as his mother spoke.
"My father was the first principal of the high school when it opened. I graduated here and I moved back here to work and raise my kids in this community so they could graduate from this school," she said.
Deb Maynard, a 35-year Talkeetna resident, says her connection to Su Valley High spans its history too.
"It's been a huge portion of my life," she said. "It's just an unimaginable loss."
Maynard has worked at the school as a cheerleading coach and library aide for 11 years. Her first husband was a principal there in the 1970s and '80s, she said.
For much of that time, she worked at a local store -- then the only spot in town with a telephone, she said. She often fielded calls for the school, a duty she says helped her forge lifelong friendships with many at Su Valley.
She began working at the school in the mid 1990s and her son began attending shortly thereafter. He graduated four years ago, she said, pausing to glance at smoke that began billowing out of the ashes. Her voice cracked as she continued.
"My daughter was a freshman here last year, so she's going to graduate out of a new school, hopefully," she said.
But she worries about what will become of Su Valley students while the school is being rebuilt, she said.
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District threatened to close the school in August 2005, less than two weeks before the start of school that year, when its roof was deemed too weak to handle heavy snow loads. It proposed sending Su Valley students to neighboring Trapper Creek Elementary School and Trapper Creek students to Talkeetna until the roof could be replaced.
An outcry by angry Talkeetna and Trapper Creek residents thwarted that plan, and the district shoveled snow from the roof until construction began this year on a new one.
Some classes and school offices were moved into eight portable classrooms on the school grounds during construction that officials expected to be complete by Christmas 2007.
Assistant superintendent George Troxel says the district will hold town meetings in the Trapper Creek and Talkeetna area before making any decisions about Su Valley.
"What I want to do is involve the community very much in deciding what the school will look like, where it will be," Troxel said. "All those things will have a huge impact on what type of programs the students will have access to."
The borough Assembly and school board may discuss the school issue at a joint meeting at 6 p.m. on June 12, he said.
Until then, Troxel didn't want even to suggest any possibilities.
"I'm hesitant to recommend anything," he said.
Options for the 2007-08 school year could include sending students to Trapper Creek Elementary or to Houston, adding portable classrooms or making use of local churches or senior centers, said Scott Schwald, the School District maintenance and transportation director.
Troxel promised an open process. Still, many are skeptical, said Su Valley principal Matt Clark.
"Memories and wounds, if you will, from two years ago -- they're not completely gone yet. It's like deja vu from 2005," he said. "But this time we have two months instead of two weeks. Hopefully we can make a better decision this time."
Daily News reporter Becky Stoppa can be reached at bstoppa@adn.com or 1-907-352-6708. Daily News reporter Zaz Hollander contributed to this report.
