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Sunday, August 17, 2014

Monterey resident enjoys MHS (Monterey High School) progress from front porch


Monterey resident enjoys MHS (Monterey High School) progress from front porch

·         Written by  Amy Davis  in the Herald-Citizen newspaper
 

Doris Sampley, 83, doesn’t have far to go to see the construction of the new Monterey High School — only to her front yard. Amy Davis | Herald-Citizen

 

MONTEREY — When it comes to the new Monterey High School, Doris Sampley has a perspective like no other.

After all, the 83-year-old has a front row seat at the show — on her front porch.

She’s heard every blast, seen practically every block lain and endured all the construction clatter as the massive building has slowly risen from the ground.

Not that she minds.

Sampley, who has lived in the brick house just behind the school for the past 41 years, likes being close to the action — and has likely witnessed more than anyone in the community. She’s even captured the progress in photos, going back to when the old MHS came down early last year.

“The other morning, they woke me up,” she recalled. “I said, ‘There’s something big going down today.’”

That’s when she looked out the window and saw the first cement truck rolling in, just across the bank in front of her house.

“It filled the whole street... never saw one that big in all my life,” she said. “I ran to the front door and looked, and there was one going on the school property and more still coming in off the road. Oh, it was something to see.”

It’s times like that when Sampley is sure to have her camera with her. She’s even gotten pictures from many of the blasts.

“They’d blow the horn three times and holler, ‘Fire in the hole!’ and then I’d have time to snap it,” she said. “One of them shook, and I thought the house was going with it.”

It’s a sound Sampley has gotten used to since students vacated the old MHS building due to dangerously flammable roofing materials in the spring of 2012 and made their temporary home in the former Uffelman Elementary building that fall. By the following spring, the old school — which was built in 1955 — had been demolished, and by October 2013, ground was broken for the new one. Once complete, MHS will serve grades 7-12, while Burks Elementary will house pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. That time is expected to be around late July 2015.

The blasting has meant Sampley’s view of the MHS construction site has gotten better over the months as the bank between her front yard and the school property was taken down quite a bit.

The only bothersome thing, though, was all the dust that came her way in the early days of construction.

“Even if you had your windows closed, it figured out how to get in,” she said.

Other than that, she’s enjoyed witnessing all the progress up close.

“I just love anything about building — seeing something go up,” she said.

It’s a love that goes back to when her first home was built near Chestnut Avenue. She was 22 at the time, and her husband, Dewitt, was working in Ohio.

“He was sending me money, and I went and bought two lots,” she said. “I said, ‘I want me a house.’ I was tired of paying rent.”

When it came time to bulldoze for a basement, they hit rock.

“I had a man come drill holes to blast,” she said. “Then I went and bought a box of dynamite.”

With long fuses, of course.

“Dewitt and I would put them down in the holes,” she said. “We started from the center and we knew which ones we were going to light — and then we’d run!

“That’s where I got my taste of building.”

The Sampleys moved to their home behind the high school around 1973 — which meant their three youngest sons, Steven, Mark and John, didn’t have far to go.

“They would be getting ready to go to school and hear the bell ring, and they’d have five minutes,” Sampley recalled. “They’d dash out the door and get to their class before the second bell. That’s why they liked to live here so good.”

Her two oldest sons, Ricky and Randy, graduated from MHS prior to the move.

Over the years, she’s watched as new wings were added to the school.

And she saw it all come down.

“There was a little sadness about it,” she said.

But her mood improved as the new one has slowly gone up.

Another reason she’s enjoyed the progress is that it has helped take her mind off her recent bout with kidney cancer. She had surgery to remove it in February.

“I could prop up on my couch and watch them when they were doing all that work,” she said. “It took my mind off myself and how bad I was feeling. And that made me happy.”

Sampley looks forward to finally seeing the school complete and noted that she has several nieces and nephews who will be attending.

“Oh, that’s going to be something,” she said.

Even if it means possible sacrifices on her part.

She recalls a conversation she had with a man who always told her when to expect the house-rattling blasts.

“He came to meet me and said, ‘Ma’am, we’re fixing to blast,’ and I said, ‘You know that rock you’re blasting on is the rock this house is sitting on?’ And he said, ‘Yes, ma’am, I know that.’”

Not that Sampley was complaining.

“I said, ‘We can’t help that... This is a brick house. If it cracks somewhere or if the windows jar out, that’s all right — we’ll fix it. This school has got to be built no matter what.”

She said the man was surprised to hear that.

“He just looked like he was in shock — but I’ll never forget that smile and the way his eyes looked just as long as I live,” Sampley said.

“He said, ‘Yes, ma’am. Not many people look at it like you do.’

“But that’s the way I felt about it.”

 

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