{"id":44268,"date":"2017-08-17T20:32:40","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T20:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/?p=44268"},"modified":"2017-08-17T20:32:40","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T20:32:40","slug":"as-austin-community-college-begins-rio-grande-campus-renovations-austin-high-school-alumni-reflect-on-years-of-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/2017\/08\/17\/as-austin-community-college-begins-rio-grande-campus-renovations-austin-high-school-alumni-reflect-on-years-of-tradition\/","title":{"rendered":"As Austin Community College begins Rio Grande campus renovations, Austin High School alumni reflect on years of tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Community Impact:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/austin\/central-austin\/economic-development\/2017\/08\/10\/austin-community-college-begins-rio-grande-campus-renovations-austin-high-school-alumni-reflect-years-tradition\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">As Austin Community College begins Rio Grande campus renovations, Austin High School alumni reflect on years of <\/a>tradition<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Scott Sayers remembers his first year at the former downtown Austin High School campus like it was yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>Carrying an armful of textbooks down the set of stairs that led to the cafeteria, he missed the last step, tumbling to the ground as his textbooks scattered\u2014to his horror, right in front of a group of senior football players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFreshman,\u201d he recalled the seniors muttering.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 50 years later, Sayers laughed at the thought of recreating his embarrassing moment as he takes a tour of his alma mater, days before Austin Community College is set to break ground on renovations for what is now the college\u2019s Rio Grande campus at 1212 Rio Grande St., Austin.<\/p>\n<p>Sayers\u2019 locker, No. 222, is one of the few that remain at the transformed AHS, which was taken over by ACC in 1975, five years after Sayers, his wife, Julie, and his friend Lindy Segall graduated.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the hallways are now stripped of lockers, and what was once the cafeteria and auditorium have become classrooms for the approximately 5,000-6,000 students seeking associate degrees and workforce certificates at the college system\u2019s downtown campus.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, ACC broke ground on a $49 million renovation project to update the facilities and bring new state-of-the-art classrooms to the historic building.<\/p>\n<p>Officials at ACC as well as U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, (third from left), an Austin High School alumnus, celebrate the groundbreaking Thursday morning.MARIE ALBIGES<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat old building is beautiful,\u201d Sayers said. \u201cIt\u2019s just a beautiful old building, and if you\u2019re wanting to preserve something that speaks to the history of the city, boy you\u2019ve got to preserve that look.\u201d<\/p>\n<h1 style=\"font-weight: inherit\"><strong style=\"font-style: inherit\">Scope of the project<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>By late 2019, the ACC Rio Grande campus will have the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a three-story, 168-seat ACCelerator learning lab\u2014similar to the lab at the ACC Highland campus\u2014 integrated with a campus library and spaces for academic coaching and small group sessions;<\/li>\n<li>two enclosed courtyards\u2014one to serve as a commons area for studying and relaxing and a second suitable for group gatherings;<\/li>\n<li>six science labs;<\/li>\n<li>expanded spaces for ACC\u2019s deaf and hard-of-hearing community;<\/li>\n<li>a high-speed internet network; and<\/li>\n<li>park-like outdoor spaces<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>During the renovations, classes for programs such as the American Sign Language-Interpreter Training, human services and paralegal will continue in Building 3000 across the street from the main building, along with core curriculum courses. Other programs historically offered at the Rio Grade campus will move to other campuses during renovations.<\/p>\n<p>ACC project officials insist the building\u2019s history and architectural features, such as its gothic fa\u00e7ade and outdoor walkway, will be preserved.<\/p>\n<p>Sayers said it brings him comfort to know the original building has not been razed to make room for a high-rise commercial development building. The 3.47 acres of land, according to the Travis County Appraisal District, is currently valued at $15.1 million.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to preserve part of it, whatever we can,\u201d Sayers said. \u201cMore power to ACC if they can respect the history and continue to use those buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>4\u00a0\/\u00a04<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[The Rio Grande campus] is an important part of the Austin Community College community and to Austin,\u201d ACC President and CEO Richard Rhodes said Thursday at the groundbreaking. \u201cWe\u2019re bringing this campus into the new century.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rhodes said the exterior of the building will remain untouched.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat you see outside is what you will see 100 years from now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, who graduated from AHS in 1964, said he grew up a block-and-a-half from the campus and and was pleased the history of his alma mater would be preserved.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI doubt that there is a room in this building or this annex that I haven\u2019t had a debate in,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of breaking ground physically, Lloyd joined ACC officials and students as well as AISD officials in ringing school bells, typically used to signify the start and end of a school day.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/support.twitter.com\/articles\/20175256\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter Ads info and privacy<\/a><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"font-weight: inherit\"><strong style=\"font-style: inherit\">50 years as Austin High School<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>Before AHS settled at the Rio Grande campus, it had several homes throughout the city.\u00a0Over the next 50 years, both Austin ISD and the city of Austin\u2019s population would grow, bringing six additional high schools to the city.<\/p>\n<p><em style=\"font-weight: inherit\">The Maroon<\/em>\u00a0newspaper was founded in 1928, and in 1953, AHS was renamed Stephen F. Austin High School after the city\u2019s founding father.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlumni and students persist today in referring to \u2018Austin High,\u2019 and ties to the name are strong,\u201d wrote historian Brian Shenk in the AHS 100-year anniversary yearbook.<\/p>\n<p>In the fall of 1969\u2014Sayers\u2019 and Segall\u2019s senior year\u2014AHS had a little more than 1,500 students enrolled under the direction of principal W.R. Robbins, according to the class of 1970 yearbook,\u00a0<em style=\"font-weight: inherit\">The Comet<\/em>. The city of Austin\u2019s population was 244,074 with an annual growth rate of 4.1 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Scott Sayers, now an agent for professional golfer Ben Crenshaw, holds up a photo of the Austin High School class of 1970.MARIE ALBIGES<\/p>\n<p>Sophomores at AHS were reading \u201cThe Taming of the Shrew.\u201d More boys than ever before enrolled in home economics. \u201cKiss Me Kate\u201d was the theatre department\u2019s spring musical. The Austin Maroon football team won the 1969 district championship. The Austin ISD school board traveled to Washington, D.C., to discuss desegregation plans with health, education and welfare department officials.<\/p>\n<p>By then, Segall and Sayers said they started to notice some of the problems in the school. A cramped library, overcrowding and lack of air conditioning were some of the issues cited in the old building. Throughout the neighborhood, businesses were starting to move into old homes, and parking was becoming limited.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThings were starting to encroach,\u201d Segall said. \u201cIt was becoming a more popular area for commercial development, even back then, so we were losing that neighborhood campus feel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-style: inherit\">\u201cI never felt that we were lacking for anything. It will always be part of my history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-style: inherit\">-Lindy Segall, Austin High School class of 1970 graduate<\/p>\n<p>On Sept. 27, 1969, Austin voters approved $74 million bond for a new AHS, to be located on waterfront land sold to AISD by The University of Texas.<\/p>\n<p>By 1975\u2014Segall and Sayers\u2019 five-year class reunion\u2014AHS had moved into the building that sits at 1715 W. Cesar Chavez St., Austin, and ACC moved into the Rio Grande campus.<\/p>\n<p>Segall and Sayers said they are pleased the building remained in the field of education and in the hands of an institution such as ACC, but it will always be their Austin High School.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were just blessed to have a beautiful, historic building and though it had its deficiencies, clearly, because it was an old building, we respected it and knew we had something special,\u201d Segall said.\u00a0\u201cI never felt that we were lacking for anything. It will always be part of my history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Community Impact:\u00a0As Austin Community College begins Rio Grande campus renovations, Austin High School alumni reflect on years of tradition Scott Sayers remembers his first year at the former downtown Austin High School campus like it &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/2017\/08\/17\/as-austin-community-college-begins-rio-grande-campus-renovations-austin-high-school-alumni-reflect-on-years-of-tradition\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3556,"featured_media":33615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[331,775,97],"class_list":["post-44268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acc-in-the-news","tag-community-impact","tag-groundbreaking","tag-rio-grande-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}