PHS Entrance
POUND — Pound may have lost its high school after Wise County consolidated its high schools in 2011, but the town’s graduates can still relive part of their high school experience.
Town residents joined the Historicafl Society of the Pound on Sunday to unveil and dedicate a one-ton part of the town’s heritage — the façade from the recently demolished Pound High School, which operated from 1953 to 2011.
Alumni Bill Gilliam, Finley Jackson and Steve Bolling pulled town the tarp covering the five-piece façade mounted in a steel frame overlooking Main Street and the Historical Society’s downtown headquarters to the applause of about 90 people.
The crowd gathered for a group picture before examining the display and trading stories of their time at Pound High. Even Betty Belcher — the longest-serving member of the Historical Society of the Pound — arrived to see the ceremony and the sign from her car.
“There’s a lot of great people from here,” Gilliam said of his experience growing up in Pound. “My parents bought the house of O.M. Morris (Pound High’s first principal).”
Gilliam said a similar effort to save the old Powell Valley High School building façade near Big Stone Gap a few years earlier was unsuccessful. That situation helped spur supporters to save the Pound High sign.
“The county didn’t know our secret weapon,” Historical Society of the Pound coordinator Margaret Meade Sturgill said of Gilliam and Jackson. “This would not have happened without these two.”
Gilliam recounted how several people and local businesses, including Buchanan Pump’s Eddie Buchanan, Anthony Buchanan, Don’s Auto Parts and NorrisBuilt Fabrication, helped with removing and storing the five-piece façade.
Each piece weighed about 450 pounds, Gilliam said, and Eddie Buchanan provided a lift and crew to salvage the pieces. Don’s Auto Parts kept the façade safe until the slabs were hauled to NorrisBuilt, and crews there were able to design the frame and supports for the display.
“We took it apart like a puzzle,” said Gilliam.
Gilliam also credited the fund-raising efforts of Jason Sturgill, who set up a GoFundMe page to raise $6,000. An anonymous donor provided $5,000 more, he said, and longtime Pound resident and Historical Society supporter Annie Buchanan donated another $5,000 to complete the $16,000 project cost.
By July 19, NorrisBuilt completed the sign frame and helped set the assembly in concrete, Gilliam said, making Sunday’s event possible.
The façade towers over a plank-wall that displays a reproduction banner of the school’s Wildcat mascot on the leftside; a photograph of PHS that was taken by Denise Gabriele was printed onto metal and is displayed in the middle; and a placard listing all of the Pound High principals and the two principals of the town’s earlier Christopher Gist High School — now the Town Hall appears on the right side.
“You can talk about doing stuff or you can do it,” Gilliam said
“If it wasn’t for Annie (Buchanan), none of this would have happened,” Jackson added.
“These two were instrumental in making this happen,” Sturgill said of Gilliam and Jackson. “We’ve made them honorary lifetime members of the Society. The mission of the Historical Society is preserving the town’s past, and this is a big part of our past.”
