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 The Spring-Ford School District dedicated its newest elementary school earlier this month with a touch of Irish flavor.
The new school on Sunset Road was named Evans Elementary School in honor of the family of William Evans, one of the first people to settle in the area in 1698. His great-grandson, Thomas Brooke Evans, was known for his involvement in the community and served as a school board director.
The Evans family was among many Irish immigrants who settled in this area and named it after their homeland of Limerick, Ireland. One highlight of the dedication ceremony was a performance by Irish dancers, including several Spring-Ford students, from the Caltin Academy of Irish Dance, Skippack.
“I’m thrilled to be with you today as we celebrate the dedication of this our seventh elementary school,” Spring-Ford Superintendent Dr. Marsha Hurda commented at the Sunday afternoon festivities. She described the dedication as a “unique opportunity to honor our past, celebrate our present and create our future.”
In celebrating the present, she commended the “genuine partnership” between teachers, students, parents, the school board and “this wonderful community.” She said the dedication revealed a community that cares and is willing to take action to provide the best education possible for its children.
Evans Principal Jacqueline Clarke-Havrilla remarked, “We at Evans Elementary are about children, family, community and looking to the future, just as our ancestors were when they came to this country.”
Echoing the theme of past, present and future, Spring-Ford School Board President Donna Williams commented, “Today we look to the future,” but she did so with a look at the past. Williams recounted the history of education in Limerick Township, with the first schools being subscription schools, sponsored by the parents of students, in the early 1800s.
By 1848, she noted, Limerick was served by eight subscription schools. This system remained in place for about a century, as the first public school, Limerick Elementary School, opened in 1952 from the consolidation of eight schools.
Several gifts were presented to the new elementary school, including a wooden bench from the Evans Home and School Association, to be placed in the lobby for the principal, staff, students and “everyone else in the community to enjoy for years to come.”
In addition, the principal and one student representative from each of Spring-Ford’s other six elementary schools presented a book for the school library. Hurda commented on the fitting nature of these gifts, as Evans Elementary represents the joining together of children from six elementary schools to create the new facility.
Also present at the ceremony were many descendants of William Evans, for whom the school was named. Speaking on behalf of the Evans family, Janet Evans Mills compared the new school to the one-room Barlow School which she attended in Limerick in the 1940s. The Evans family presented the school with an original watercolor painting of the Evans homestead, painted by local artist Julie Longacre.
The celebration also included the launch of a year-long time capsule project. Throughout the year, two capsules will be filled with articles from the school and community. The first item placed into the capsules was the program from the dedication ceremony. One capsule will be opened in June 2020, when the first Evans kindergartners graduate from high school. The second will be opened in June 2108, 100 years after the completion of the first school year at Evans.
District officials also used the celebration as an opportunity to announce a developing partnership between Spring-Ford schools and a pair of schools in Limerick, Ireland. Attending the dedication were two principals from Limerick schools, Diarmuid O’Murchu, of The Model School, and Noel Malone, Colaiste Chiarain.
O’Murchu noted that the definition of the Model School is to try out new things, and thus the educational partnership is beginning between Limerick, Ireland and Limerick, Pennsylvania. He indicated his hope that the partnership will dispel the Hollywood picture of the two cultures and instead create “real contacts, real views and real friendships that will last for centuries to come.”
“While our past we treasure,” he added, “our future is in our hands.”
Malone, principal of a school of 800 students, remarked, “We are absolutely delighted with … the possibilities of this partnership.” Noting that the exchange will include three-week student visits between the schools, he commented, “The children are the same all the world over.”
As the dedication neared its end, a blue ribbon was stretched across the stage. A group of Evans Elementary “EVAN(s),” children with the last name Evans or first name Evan, gathered around the ribbon for the ceremonial cut.
“There are two important gifts that we can give our children,” Principal Clarke-Havrilla concluded. “One of those is roots, and the other is wings.”
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