I remember back 19 years ago, when I had just come to Blue Earth to be the new editor of the Faribault County Register.

Then Blue Earth Area Schools superintendent Dale Brandsoy gave me a tour of the BEA Elementary and BEA Middle School.

That tour offer came after I had mistakenly gone to the BEA High School to cover a BEA School Board meeting. And then had learned that they did not meet at the high school, but in a room in the elementary school.

I have to admit that the tour was pretty confusing. We went up and down stairs, through hallways, and I was having trouble keeping up with what he was telling me and showing me.

I mean, I have navigated through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area easier than through that series of buildings that was home to BEA middle and elementary students.

The school has changed a bit over the years since the tour, especially the location of the middle and elementary school offices.

And, during COVID, the BEA School Board did move their meeting site to the high school, in the Media Center, so they could “spread out” more and not be crowded close together. They have continued to meet there, despite COVID rules being lifted.

Now, thanks to Register reader Cheryl Brooks, I finally have a good grasp of how and when the myriad of buildings that compose the BEA middle and elementary schools came to be.

She brought me a very old copy of the Mah-Ko-Tah, the Blue Earth school newspaper, dated March 4, 1957. The entire issue is dedicated to superintendent Lee R. Pemberton, who was going to retire at the end of that school year. He had been Blue Earth Schools superintendent for an amazing 35 years, since 1922.

There were several stories about superintendent Pemberton, and I may use that info later sometime.

But the back page was dedicated to the history of the school itself.

I found it quite interesting, and it explained how different additions to the whole complex were made over the years.

And what those projects cost.

The first school building in Blue Earth was built in 1861 and was 24 x 30 feet. Think one-room school building, because that is what it was. In 1882 a bond issue for $2,500 was passed and a new school was built in 1889. Another new one was added and built in 1901 at a cost of $40,000.

In 1928 the 1889 building was torn down and replaced with a new brick structure for $130,000, which was the high school. It would eventually become known as the junior high building.

Next up was a $345,000 bond passed in 1945 to build a new elementary building – which was completed in 1953.

Then came the big project, just two years later.

The 1901 building was torn down to make room for a new senior high school, which was built in 1955 at a cost of $1,250,000, a figure which included the cost of remodeling the former high school into a junior high.

At the time it had areas for music, art, science, business and home ec, industrial arts and an ag education department. It also had the largest gymnasium in southern Minnesota called the L.R. Pemberton Auditorium.

Superintendent Pemberton oversaw the construction of most of these buildings, except for the 1901 building, during his long tenure.

And of course, he was not involved in the “new” high school building. What is still sometimes referred to as the new high school was built in 1993-1994 at a cost of $9 million.

So that “new” high school is now 32 years old and needs quite a few updates.

I guess the point of this week’s column is to give a little background to the history of those different school buildings and how they were all tied together in a sometimes confusing myriad of hallways and stairways.

I have had a couple of complete tours of this current building, parts of which date back to 1928, thanks to superintendent Mandy Fletcher.

There is a lot of history in the buildings, and there is a need to spend money on either some massive improvement projects, or a new building construction project – like the community has done quite a few times in the past.

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. And I wonder what Supt. Lee Pemberton would think about it all.