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Health & Fitness

Clinton Is In Need Of A New High School Building

The Need for a New Morgan School

The building is decades old. The heating and electrical systems are inadequate. There is a lack of up to date equipment.  Classrooms have been configured and reconfigured. Floors are worn, plaster is falling and the students are eager for a new school building. Once a shining example of architectural splendor and innovation, with the most advanced amenities, the school is now a run down shambles. Conditions are too costly to consider additions, upgrades and repairs.  The town is debating the merits of building a new school that will be more energy efficient, classrooms outfitted with the latest in technology not to mention a safer, healthier environment for learning.  Clinton, 2012?  No, this is what Clinton taxpayers were debating in 1949. 

Lindsay Fletcher graduated from Morgan in 1908 and later became the custodian of the original Morgan School and was its custodian at the time of his death, May 28, 1951.  He was quite a poet and several of his poems are among the Morgan documents at the George Flynn Library of the Clinton Historical Society.  In 1949 he wrote a poem that so captured the plight of the students of the grand, old building that they paid to have it printed in the local newspaper.  Here are a few excerpts from that poem that could be used today:

I presume you all have talked about the wild kids of today;

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What can we do about it? Now, this is what I’d say.

Our school is growing very old, the floors are getting thin,

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It’s badly over crowded, We can hardly all get in.

Just a word about the furnace; That too, you know is slightly old

And when winter winds are blowing, You’ll find the rooms a wee bit cold.

The furnace is not all to blame, ‘Cause rooms are cold as sin,

The windows which are ancient, just let the winds come in.

The lighting too is not so hot; In fact, it’s very bad

We wish that we might have some lights As all new schools have had....

Time we find is always ruthless, many buildings of today

Buildings we’ve been mighty proud of by tomorrow will decay.

We’ve been very proud of Morgan, proud of all the good she's done

And though fond; we must admit that her race is nearly run.....

Yes, Charles Morgan had the interest of the young folk in his heart

So that now the need's arisen, let's step up and do our part.

Let's start in and build a new school, name it after him who's deed

In our hearts will live forever, that is what our young folk need.

Whether Mr. Fletcher’s poem was the final impetus or not, the town ultimately approved building a new Morgan School. Will history be repeated for the betterment of the young people of Clinton today?

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