Waverly’s graduating seniors pay one last visit to the elementary school wiped out by record flood

If you were born and raised in Waverly, like graduating high schooler Anndee Haley, you know the tradition before graduation day: seniors say their goodbyes during one last walk through Waverly Elementary School.

“I have memories of when I was a kid of the seniors going through,” says Haley, “and so it’s really sad. I don’t get to do that.”

Haley was one of dozens of graduating seniors who gathered in the parking lot of the now flood-damaged elementary school. They were there to say goodbye to the building where many of them began their K-12 careers.

Reading teacher BJ Scholes helped organize the commemoration. She told WPLN News that the goal was to bring closure to students, teachers and community members.

Damon Mitchell WPLN News

Waverly high school seniors, Tate Robinson and Anndee Haley, pose with retired physical education teacher Marilyn Phillips.

“It truly is a cornerstone. It’s right at the edge of town,” Scholes says. “It’s hard to imagine driving by one day and it not being here.”

Last August, a destructive flood sparked by a historic rainfall of nearly 21 inches tore up the town’s elementary and junior high schools. That’s in addition to destroying nearly all of the town’s public housing units, and damaging dozens of other buildings and businesses. The flood killed 20 people.

Students at the damaged schools have been attending class one town over. They’ll eventually get a new school in a safer area — but officials don’t yet have a timeline.

Retired elementary physical education teacher, Marilyn Phillips, says she taught at the elementary school for 40 years. She led the seniors on a walk outside the building to celebrate their upcoming graduation.

“I had everybody that went to kindergarten, pre-K, and first, second and third grade. I had them all here,” Phillips says. “I was here long enough that I had some children, and then they grew up and I had their children.”

Senior Tate Robinson, who also attended the commemoration, says he’s just ready to move on and get his life started after an unusual past two years. He plans to go to trade school in the fall to become an electrician.

“[I’ll be] local for a year or two until I can get some money built up,” Robinson says, “and hopefully move somewhere else, like Colorado.”