Bittersweet day at Cary school

When students at Maplewood School in Cary celebrated Hundredth Day this year, the special activities were colored with fun and a tinge of sadness.

It was the last time the neighborhood school would mark the 100th day of the school year; after 61 years, Cary School District 26 plans to close Maplewood when the final bell rings in June.

Students commemorated Hundredth Day by writing reasons they love their school on paper hearts. Aiming to get 100 different reasons, they hung the hearts all over the building for everyone to appreciate.

"There were many of the expected answers," teacher Kathy Brandwein wrote in an e-mail. "The teachers, the principal, gym, field day, assemblies.

"But this one caught my eye. A third grade boy named Nick Turskey wrote this on his heart: 'I love Maplewood because my grandpa was here for the first year it opened and I am here for the last year.'"

And just like Nick is a third-grader during his school's final year, his grandfather, Dennis Turskey, was in third grade when the doors opened for the first time.

That was in the fall of 1948, and it was a big day for the community. Dennis had attended kindergarten in the white frame schoolhouse that later became Cary Methodist Church and is now Windridge Funeral Home; first and second grades were at Cary Public School in what is now August Kraus Senior Center.

But when all the students moved over to Maplewood, "it was huge compared to the school we came from," said Dennis, now 68 and still a Cary resident. "It was brand-new. We could now walk right down the hallway into the gymnasium, which we could never do before. That's what most of the kids thought was cool."

Actually, that same gymnasium was already there on Krenz Avenue when the kids were going to Cary Public, and they walked the two blocks between the buildings regularly. The gym also served as a community center until the town decided to add eight rooms and turn it into Maplewood School.

Cary in 1948 was a world apart from the village Nick and his little sister, Natalie - a kindergartner at Maplewood - are growing up in. The sign at the edge of town reported a population of 300, Dennis remembers, and "the biggest activity around here was the Curtis breeding farm," he said.

Boys used to go out to the pastureland during summers to throw apples at the bulls. That was as exciting as it got, he said. Still, "if it hadn't been for the U.S. Army, I'd probably never have left town."

After high school, Dennis was drafted and served in Vietnam, returning to Cary to work as an electrical lineman and troubleshooter for ComEd for 34 years. He and his wife, Virginia, raised four children and have seven grandkids - all of whom remain in Cary, where the population now approaches 20,000.

Their son Brett is Nick's father, but he attended Briargate Elementary, which is next door to Dennis and Virginia's home. Briargate is where Nick also will be a fourth-grader, but he's disappointed that he won't have art class anymore or be able to benefit from the gifted/talented resources as he does now.

Like Maplewood School itself, districtwide art and gifted programs are being sacrificed in the hopes of balancing the budget.

But that's a matter for this fall. For now, Nick is focused on finishing this school year well.

"I like my teacher, Mrs. Kerr," he said. "She used to be a substitute for kindergarten when I was in that class."

Art is his favorite subject, and he also enjoys history, he said. Nick likes to build with Legos and draw pictures or play outside in his free time after school; his grandpa, on the other hand, had an after-school paper route until he began playing basketball in fifth grade.

"When I heard Maplewood was closing, I happened to think that Nick's in the third grade, and I went there when I was in the third grade, and that was quite a coincidence," Dennis said. "I'm sorry to see the school close."

On that point, both Turskeys agree.

"I don't really like that it's closing because I think it's a really cool school," Nick said.

Many Maplewood alumni apparently feel the same way, too.

"Everyone's been bringing in their memorabilia because it's closing," said Nick's mom, Dana Turskey.

She said an open house is being planned for May for the community to say its goodbyes.