By Judy Keen, USA TODAY, April 17, 2012

LOVINGTON, Ill. – Each day, students gather in the Lovington High School science lab to catalog and repair trophies won by their classmates and some of their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.

The school, built in 1907, is in its last weeks. The trophies won't follow Lovington students 10 miles to Arthur and the newly renamed Arthur-Lovington High School this fall. They will be displayed in the bank, phone company, library, grain elevator and churches here.

A year ago, voters approved — by a 32-vote margin — the annexation of the Lovington School District by the Arthur School District, which has about 115 students in its junior and senior high school. LHS has 78 students, including 16 seniors.

The last day of classes is May 25. "It's going to be tough after spending all my life here," says Lovington sophomore Logan West, 16. "There's a time in everyone's life where they have to make a change. I'm fine with it."

Others in this village of 1,300 are taking it harder. The school and its sports teams were the community's glue and entertainment. Some worry that its closure will give area residents one fewer reason to come to town, hurting businesses.

"I'd hate to see this community die down," says Gary Smith, a former Lovington mayor, its current fire chief and manager of the grain elevator. "I hope it doesn't happen." A 1973 LHS graduate whose father was in the class of 1939, he voted against annexation.

"A lot of people have a stake in this school," LHS Principal Brandon Stone says.

Wave of closures

Shrinking budgets and enrollments are forcing school closures and consolidations across the nation. From 2008 to 2009, 1,822 public elementary and secondary schools closed, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. A year earlier, 1,515 closed.

Two Pittsburgh high schools are undergoing the same transition as LHS. Oliver's 300 students will move this fall to archrival Perry, which has 650. Unity activities began in January and will continue through the summer

Perry Principal Nina Sacco says it's important that Oliver students feel they have a voice in their future school. "This is their home now," she says.

Money was a factor here, says Kyle VonSchnase, Lovington School District superintendent. The state, which contributes a third of the district's $3 million budget, is behind on payments and the district has dipped into reserve funds. Facing the annexation has been difficult for some, he says, but "everyone has just pulled together as a community."

Mayor Kelly Bennett, whose daughter is a senior, says it was time. "There's a lot of sentimental value to these old schools, but when they no longer serve their purpose, let them go," she says.

The elementary school, which has 245 students, will remain in Lovington. Although some people explored whether a religious school might move into the high school, it will be demolished after asbestos is removed.

By mid-October, VonSchnase says, it will be gone. Bricks from the school will be available to anyone who wants one. A Civil War-era flag hanging in the school will go to the Moultrie County Historical Society. Some furniture will be auctioned. The trophies are getting special care.

"We heard of many cases of consolidation where all the memories and trophies and memorabilia were stored away in an attic and totally lost," says Ray Duncan, owner of Hardware State Bank and a former LHS basketball coach whose two children graduated from the school. When alumni return for homecoming, Duncan says, they will be able to visit the trophies. A big homecoming celebration is "part of the identity of this community," he says, and it will continue.

Treasured symbols

Aaron Fleming, 18, salutatorian of the class of 2012, says those trophies and photos of graduating classes are what he'll remember most. His grandmother is in a photo of the class of 1947. "Things like that make this school special," says valedictorian Austin Evans, 18.

Most sports at Lovington and Arthur merged because neither school had enough students to field a team, but volleyball and boys basketball teams remained separate — and archrivals. Students will help decide whether Lovington's panther mascot or Arthur's knight will be used or whether a new mascot will be chosen.

The day the school becomes rubble will be difficult, says Pastor Al Rennert of First Christian Church. "There are many people here who were born, raised and lived here," he says. "They had their moments of glory there."

Many of them, he says, "still believe that it didn't have to happen."

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