What’s Right With Our Schools: Sequoyah Vocational Students Replace Damaged Grave Markers
SODDY DAISY, TN (WDEF) – Headstones are supposed to serve as lasting reminders of those who came before us, but the elements and vandals can make them hard to read. Students at Sequoyah have come up with a solution. It’s a long-lasting example of what’s right with our schools.
David Massengale is a senior at Sequoyah Vocational High School.
He explains, “So, I was at a little kids All-Star baseball game, and I heard a dude behind me talking about wanting to get with Sequoya and upkeeping the grave markers for some old Soddy coal miners back in the early to late 1800s and stuff like that. I was like well I’m actually in the machine shop, so I can probably hook you up with something pretty good. He had run me by and said that many people would come and vandalize and steal the gravestones. He’d make little signs and try to I guess keep their history up, so people would understand. So, I’m hooking him up with uh these aluminum blocks that have all their information and stuff on them. And I’m going to try and keep them in the ground to preserve the history. So, people uh around Soddy and other places can know a little bit about it.”
Kirk Johnson is the greying, yet still chiseled, CTE Machining Technologies Instructor at Sequoyah Vocational High School.
He remembers, “I thought that’s a heck of a project right there. Because there was. He’s got about 10 or 12 of them he’s doing. I said,’ Hey, if we got the material let’s do it.’ So, anytime a student wants to do something for the community that’s a great thing.”
Johson continues, “So we’re going to weld a bracket down here and it comes across. So, when we go to the cemetery. We’re going to dig us a hole, put some rebar in drop that down in there so people just can’t come by and pick them up they, they’ll be they’ll be securely fastened to the ground.”
David Massengale chips in, “Well, it kind of bothered me you know. That’s history you know. And once you get rid of history, I mean, that’s no more. It really helps a lot of people to you know understand that what these people had went through what they encountered and stuff like that. I really love, you know, upkeeping the history and stuff about it. I like the one that got blew up by the uh 100 lb of dynamite which one was that uh? I didn’t know that they encountered many of the stuff. One person was electrocuted to death, and I’m feel sorry for and stuff like that, but just really, really, crazy kind of how stuff they experience and stuff.”
Johnson swells with pride when he says, “David’s one of the best students I’ve had. He actually is working in a machine shop now doing work Based Learning at a premier pattern with Tyler. And he’s doing an awesome job. He’s a great, great kid and uh I knew he’s going to do a wonderful job. And you can look see at the, the quality and just how nice they look. I knew he was going to do a good job at it.”
David concludes, “It makes me, makes me feel really good you know. I like giving as much as I can. I know these hopefully stick around for quite a while you know. And when I get older, I can bring people around be like, “yeah” I did those and stuff like that and be real appreciated about it.”
