When ASB secretary Teri (Lawson) Parkhouse thinks back to her senior year of high school, she says she doesn’t remember much of the remodel, aside from the land that became known as Portable High School.
“I don’t remember much prior to the remodel. I do remember portable city,” Parkhouse said.
Portable City, also referred to as Portable High School, came to be during the 1995 $15 million remodel of the main building; all the classes were held outside the main school building with most of them being in portables. Any others were held in numerous buildings around the city such as open rooms in churches.
The school went through many changes during the remodel.
The floors in the second and third floor hallways were carpeted, the building was repainted using softer colors, sound panels and extra storage were added to the music room and each classroom had at least one computer along with a 30-inch computer monitor.
According to an article in the 1994 Viking Vanguard, the school auditorium and cafeteria were both not operational until some time in October of that year. The improvements to the auditorium included updating the original chandelier to code as well as updating the seats to ones with padded and wider chairs to still reflect the early 1900s era.
Another one of the big changes was the old gym being removed from the main building, but a new commons area was added where the gym was. It was done to make improvements while maintaining the beauty and elegance of the building.
“The atrium area off the cafeteria was beautiful. [I] just remember it being so bright after the remodel,” Parkhouse said. “Also, the traffic pattern outside the school changed a bit which was for the better, I recall.”
