By SARA GREENE
Leader deputy managing editor
The new 194,162-square- foot Cabot High School cost the district $17,593,249, or about $90.61 per foot. The final price tag was announced during an open house at the school Sunday afternoon. Steve Elliott, a 1973 Cabot High School graduate, designed the building. Elliott is also the architect for the district’s next new school, the $6.6 million Stagecoach Elementary.
His father, Don Elliott, a former superintendent for the district, was at the open house to take part in the Cabot Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting ceremony.
“Education has come a long way. This building is really something else. I think Steve did a great job with it,” Don Elliott said.
Other retired Cabot administrators at the open house included Steve Elliott’s former football coach, Jack Carrington. Besides coaching, Carring-ton served the school as principal twice, first from 1977 to 1999 and then from 1992 to 1996. “It’s really something else and I’m so pleased one of our boys designed it,” Carrington said.
Portraits of all the Cabot High School principals, dating back to 1925, have been put up in the hallways. Cabot High School principal Tony Thurman gave Charles and Rose George a tour of his office. Charles George served as the school’s principal from 1955 to 1963. During his tenure, the school’s enrollment was about 650 students. There are 1,725 students enrolled at Cabot High School this year.
With such a large student body, Thurman says one of the advantages of having all the teachers and students in one place helps everyone connect on a personal level. “It was really hard to get to know the students. Here I get to see everyone nearly everyday,” Thurman said. The two-storied, V-shaped building is arranged to support the district’s six career academies of agriculture, science and mechanics; business, finance and information technology; construction, engineering and automotive technology; health and human services; education, law and public service, and fine arts, journalism and communications. Tastefully decorated in the school colors of red and black with accents of gray and beige, the building’s greatest beauty is its size.
Previously teachers and students spent the school year inside 25 temporary trailers scattered across the 45-acre campus. Students like Jackie Howard’s son Kevin spent time between classes trekking through the elements on cold and rainy days.
“I’m so thrilled he got to spend his senior year in this new building,” Jackie Howard said.
Visitors to the school were treated to music by the school’s jazz band and the reader’s theater group performed “Hooray for Diffendoofer Day,” one of the last stories written by children’s author Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Suess. Girls from the Cabot High School show choir did a choreographed version of “Singing in the Rain” complete with black umbrellas and matching dresses before joining other choir students for several closing numbers.