‘Come Soar with Us’: Vinemont Schools embark on 50th anniversary celebration as new school year begins

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Vinemont Elementary School student council members welcome parents and students to open house. (Christy Perry for The Tribune)

VINEMONT – Vinemont Schools, along with others in the Cullman County Schools system, will be starting the new school year on Wednesday. Vinemont Schools will also begin a year-long celebration of their 50th anniversary (1969-2019). The administrators, teachers, students and staff will be focusing on the history of their schools in the community.

The Tribune visited Vinemont Schools’ open house Monday evening, and everyone was excited and ready to go.

Vinemont Elementary School Principal Kim Brown welcomed students and parents as they looked for their new classrooms. Brown is enthusiastic not only about the new school year and anniversary, but also because on Aug. 3, Gov. Kay Ivey named Vinemont Elementary an Alabama Bicentennial School.  The school will receive a $2,000 grant to help strengthen connections between the school and the community.

Said Brown, “We are looking forward to a great year of learning, growing and building school community relations.”

Vinemont Elementary (K-5) has at least 486 students enrolled this year with 25 homeroom classes. It also has music, counseling, physical education and library time. It will continue its award-winning archery program after school and hopes to add an after-school dance program.

Vinemont Elementary will have many activities and lessons focusing on the history of Vinemont and the important role agriculture has in the school’s history. Students will have an “old-timey” school activity to explore what school was like in the area 100 years ago. The students will also continue to plant vegetables and flowers in the gardens and participate in outdoor classes and community service projects within their community.

Vinemont Middle School has a new principal this year, Johnny Whaley, who was most recently assistant principal at Vinemont High. Whaley started as a teacher at Vinemont Schools and has been in various positions there for 16 years.

When describing what makes the schools great, Whaley explained, “We are all family. We might be small, but we have a great culture and climate here. We don’t like to think of ourselves as three schools: we are all Vinemont Schools. We are excited to all be celebrating 50 years.”

The sixth-eighth-grade students will notice some improvements as they head to class Wednesday.

Said Whaley, “I bet we’ve used 75 gallons of paint in here this summer. We have new floors in some areas, classrooms painted, doorways painted and new murals.”

Vinemont Middle School is excited to offer a journalism class this year, along with a school newspaper, The Eagle Flyer, and a school news channel, the Eagle News Network. Sonya Mabry and Mandy Redding will be guiding young journalists and reporters.

Vinemont High School has been very busy adding fresh paint and overhauling the gymnasium.

Principal Robin Netherton shared, “We are excited about the gym improvements. We spent $20,000 on painting, adding new floors, and we now have two volleyball courts instead of one. We are set to host the county volleyball tournament this year, so we added a court in anticipation of that.”

The theme at Vinemont High School this year is “Come Soar with Us.” Many alumni events are planned to commemorate the school’s 50-year history. Band Director Skylar King will be directing an alumni band performance at Vinemont’s homecoming on Sept. 21.

“They will play the national anthem, the fight song and some other tunes. It will be a lot of fun,” said King.

Learn more about Vinemont Schools at http://vme.ccboe.org/, http://vmm.ccboe.org/ and http://vmh.ccboe.org/.

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