Getting there.

Tuesday was a very important day for Washington County. Our Board of Education staged a key-turning ceremony for the Barbara Ingram School for the Arts in downtown Hagerstown. Oh, a key-turning ceremony is like a ground-breaking ceremony, except in this case the ground was broken sometime in the 19th century, and what we’re dealing with here is rehabilitating a hundred-year-old building into a modern educational facility.

Anyway, I went away with plenty to think about. The first thing is the support for this school from our business community was overwhelmingly evident, as was support from every civic and service organization as well as public officials. The breakfast reception (held at our Maryland Theatre, which neighbors the school) was packed. Bankers and lawyers cheek-by-jowl with nonprofit directors and county commissioners. One well-aimed grenade would have brought the city to its knees. Not that I’m recommending any such thing, I’m just saying it was a living, breathing Hagerstown Who’s-Who, with coffee and muffins on the side.

There was even a protestor, which I think always lends an air of legitimacy to any public event. The Board of Ed’s one-man chronic conscience stood at the curb, in the rain, with a large placard: Big Note$, Wrong Mu$ic. The sign looked to have been professionally produced. Which makes me wonder if the Board of Ed is dabbling in counter-intelligence these days. But still, it was effective. I learned years ago that the most useful opponent is one who comes across as a kook. Looks like the Barbara Ingram School is in luck!

Major props to schools superintendent Elizabeth Morgan. She’s guided this project from being an easily-dismissed pipe dream to an actual construction project that is being pushed along by enormous public and private support. The funding model—a blend of alternative financing and bond money and historic preservation tax credits and who knows what else—is the first of its kind in Maryland (which actually shouldn’t be a surprise, since Washington County had the first bookmobile in the country, the first arts council in the state, the first of a lot of stuff). Anyway, Dr. Morgan took a lot of hits along the path that brought us to this day, some of them pretty personal. I don’t know for sure what all Betty has in her protective arsenal, but at least two of them are made of brass. The ceremony concluded with an actual unlocking of a huge mock padlock on the building’s front doors.


Pay attention to what happens next. There’ll be the sound of hammers and saws for about year. The din will fade away to be replaced with harmony and rhythm, and if you listen real close, the gentle sounds of brush on canvas. A true symphony of young minds, eager to learn and to speak the special language of their hearts.