Former Students Hope to Save Dunbar Elementary from Demolition

By Jon Jordan, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The doors at Dunbar Elementary may be closed, but one community is refusing to let their school go.

Dunbar Elementary closed last year, ending 88 years as a school. Now former students are making a push to keep the building from being torn down.

The school was slated to undergo a complete makeover as part of MAPS for Kids. However, after several years of low enrollment numbers, the school was forced close.

For Horace Stevenson, 5th grade may have been over 60 years ago, but he said he remembers his time at the school like it was yesterday, and his former classmates have gone on to become some of his closest friends.

"Well sometimes you go off and you cry to yourself, their love and friendship we had together. It just means everything," said Stevenson, class of 1950. "This was the heart beat of this community."

Even though the school's time has come and gone, the community said its history should be more than enough to keep the building from getting torn down.

"I refuse to let them tear this school down. It would break my heart, my grand kids' heart, my whole family," said Donna Crutcher, class of 1972.

And to make sure the school isn't torn down, the community is banning together to try to persuade school officials from doing just that.

"Things like this we try to preserve because it does mean a lot," said Erma Tompkins, Fighting to Save School Building.

If the school is bulldozed, Topkins said she thinks the school district will regret it.

"It's building back up, and we believe there will come a day when they will need to use it again," Tompkins said.