To BTW building, C you later

Early in the morning on Saturday, Aug. 18 Booker T. Washington Magnet High School’s Building C in Montgomery caught fire.

The building contained the school’s art, photography, Center for Advanced Technology and broadcast media magnets as well as the library, counselor’s office and the yearbooks.

A darkroom, ceramic kiln, a TV studio, old music records, Macs and hundreds or even thousands of hours of student work were all lost in the fire.

The walls of the building were always decorated with the artwork and photography of old and new students, and the new students lost pretty much all of their portfolio work in the fire.

That’s a lot of history to lose in one night.

However, that’s just the building’s history as it pertains to being part of the magnet high school.

The building was built in 1896 and served as the central building for then all-black Booker T. Washington School.

That’s over 100 years of history in one building all gone up, literally, in smoke.

Building C also happens to be where I spent a lot of my time during my junior and senior years at BTW as part of the broadcast media magnet. In fact, that magnet is what led me to pursue journalism in the first place.

I loved the radio portion of the magnet more than anything so I went to Troy University with the idea of pursuing broadcast journalism. Then, I fell in love with the print side of things after my first reporting class.

Without that school and without that building, I probably wouldn’t be a staff writer here.

I remember Thursday conversations and putting on mock radio shows. I remember putting together radio commercials and working on the BTW showcase video.

I remember the friends I made in that magnet and the people I butted heads with. I remember manning cameras for the morning show and someone falling off the studio stage.

I even remember thinking the school was going to lose Building E to a fire when a student lit a fire in the bathroom.

I remember a lot of things that I’m better off not mentioning as well.

That building held a lot of memories for me. I didn’t realize how many until I sat down to reflect on my time there after hearing the news.

However, I know the staff at BTW have this handled and that the school will be able to bounce back and I wish them the best of luck in doing so. It’s a tall order, but I think they’ve got this.

After all, they survived putting up with me for four years.

To the students, new and old, who lost their work in the fire, this stinks. I’m not going to lie, it’s real rough.

The best advice I can give is keep moving forward. Remember the times you had fondly, but ultimately keep your vision moving forward. This will be a tough thing to bounce back from, but it will be some pretty good inspiration for later projects.

We, everyone who has memories regarding Building C, are now in charge of keeping its history alive.

So in conclusion, I’ll honor Building C in the only way that seems fitting given my time there, a terrible pun.

C you later.

Justin Blowers is a staff writer for The Southeast Sun and Daleville Sun-Courier. The opinions of this writer are his own and not the opinion of the paper. He can be reached at (334) 393-2969 or by email at [email protected].