Schools

Describe the schools you attended.

Joseph City Elementary School is a pretty small school as far as enrollment in a very small town in Northern Arizona. The school is large and beautiful though. I’m going from my memories from the last time I saw the inside, which was quite a long time ago, so maybe it isn’t quite as big as I remember. (You all know how that is. Things that were so big when you were little, just aren’t that big.)

The school included grades K – 6. The classrooms were large and bright. The library rocked. I loved that library. As you walk in the front doors of the school you would be looking straight into the gymnasium. The gym was build into the middle of the school with the classrooms all around the outside edges. The Library was the first room on the right, followed by the Kindergarten room. The other grades just continued on in grade order.

The playground was huge and had at least a few “toys” that I have never seen in any other playground. There were hopscotch and four square lines painted on some areas of the playground. We had I think about four tetherball poles. There was a really large wall that was painted black creating a little covered walkway right against the back of the school. We loved to throw balls and things against that wall.

Joseph City Junior/Senior High School was awesome too. The Junior High and the High School shared the same building so it was for grades 7 – 12. There is a huge auditorium on the school property as well as an Olympic sized indoor pool. Also on the lot is a pretty nice football field with track, etc., a baseball field, and tennis courts. The landscaping of the school I always found really cool. As you walk in the front door the office was on the left and a set of bathrooms to the right. Straight ahead there was the activity room/cafeteria and to the right of that the gym. If you walked passed the office and turned left you would see the start of the hallway. The classrooms were all on the left side. On the right side were the lockers and large windows between the lockers. When looking out the windows one would see a courtyard built into the center of the building. There was also a large building kind of behind the school were a few of the extra classes were held. These were mostly the shop type classes. Auto shop and wood shop were in that building and the second floor was the computer lab. Behind the school, across the street, was a small building where we had seminary.

Willcox High School was were I went for my Junior and Senior years of high school. I was not a happy camper to move to Willcox from Joseph City for those two years of school. I don’t have many fond memories of the school itself. I did meet some great friends at Willcox High School and I am thankful for them, but I also had some really rough times in my life at that school. Not my favorite place by far as far as schools go.

For college I went to Eastern Arizona College. I loved this school. My first semester was hard and I hated being there, but I still loved my classes. When I went back after taking a semester and the summer off, I was in a much better situation and I loved it. I had some really great roommates and a few that I had a hard time living with, but overall it was a wonderful experience. I got a great education and I love that school. I love my experience there.

I just noticed that I went into more details of the actual buildings in Joseph City but went more on feelings in the other schools. I’m not sure why that is. I have so many fond memories of friends, family, and experiences that I had in Joseph City too. I think it might be based on the fact that I want to go back, soon I hope, and have the chance to just visit all of the places where I grew up, take pictures, and just “live” there for a while. Raysha and I talked for a while about taking a trip up there. It would be so fun if we could.