Steve and Patty Mendell made one last tour of the old building.

Still standing, but mostly gutted, the walls of the former Lomega High School still talked to them.

“This needed to be done,” Steve said. “But you still need to shed a tear.”

Demolition of the main building that has served as Lomega students’ school home for seventh-12th grades more than 40 years began last week.

“There have been a few people that have stopped by to grab a brick or two,” said current Superintendent Steve Shiever.

“There were a lot of great memories made in that building for this community.”

The new high school - built with a $15.4 million bond issue passed in February 2019 - was completed last winter and students and staff moved in for the second semester of the 2020-21 school year.

That left the old schoolhouse largely unneeded.

Being razed are the main junior high-high school building, the old roundtop and storage shed.

The building just to the east of the old high school, which houses the cafeteria and some classrooms, will remain, Shiever said.

Mendell’s sentiments were echoed by many who spent time in the old building.

“It’s definitely sad to see the pictures of the old high school being torn down,” said Shelly (Pope) Overstreet, who graduated in 1989.

Juliette (Ramer) Lentz is a 2000 Lomega grad and is currently in her fourth year as an administrative assistant at the school.

“Since the demo crew has started, it looks like someone beat it up,” said Lentz on Thursday. “I was there this morning to look inside. It’s all knocked down.

“You can’t help but feel a little sad.”

As the building starts to come down, the memories begin to rise up.

“So many great memories in that building,” said Mark Snowden, Lomega Class of 1993 who is now the CEO of Cimarron Electric Cooperative.

Snowden smiles now, but wasn’t so much his freshman year when Mrs. Karen Gerber “tried to broaden our horizons in that building” by having the class read Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities.”

“I can remember it was during basketball season and us freshman boys would take turns reading it aloud in class with Mrs. Gerber,” Snowden said.

“We did not have a clue what that guy was talking about in that book.”

The lack of comprehension led to some less-than-stellar grades. That didn’t go over well with Charles Lewallen, the boys basketball coach at the time.

“We were all nearly failing in that class that semester and Coach Lewallen would run us in practice and encourage us to get our grades up in the only way he knew how,” Snowden said.

Did it work?

“All I can say, we were in really good shape that year and we all thanked the good Lord above for those Friday vocabulary test Mrs. Gerber would give us,” Snowden said. “If it weren’t for them, all of us would have been ineligible.”

Steve Mendell and Patty Baker were sophomores when the school first opened its doors in 1968.

It was just Omega then. Loyal students joined the next year and it became Lomega.

Steve and Patty were members of the second graduating class of Lomega in 1970.

The two later married and then put three children of their own through the school.

Steve was the superintendent - with his office in that building - for 18 years before retiring eight years ago.

“I remember the work we put into it over the years,” he said. “We went through every room in there and remodeled it.”

A few years ago, former girls basketball coach Karen (Edgar) Knight returned for a basketball reunion of sorts.

“I really enjoyed sitting in the teachers’ lounge, talking with her about old times and Lomega girls sports,” Steve recalled.

“It was all a really special time.”

But just as Knight did and just as Mendell did, there comes a time to move on.

“It’s sad, but it’s time to move on to the new building,” he said. “Buildings are buildings and it was time for the kids to move on to a new one.”

Overstreet has fond memories she said won’t fade when the walls finally do come down.

“As I was talking to (her husband) Todd (Overstreet) about all the memories I have of being in that building for six years, it’s not the actual building that I remember most,” she said.

“It’s the wonderful teachers pouring into the lives of their students, the pop quizzes, Coach Lew’s ping pong tournament, the all-school plays, our wonderful lunch ladies and our amazingly creative, smart, talented - and now - successful student body.”

Overstreet added that it won’t be the building that’s remembered when Lomega students and staff look back.

“Lomega will always be a great school and community, not because of the buildings, but because of those who occupy the halls,” she said.

Lentz echoed that.

She not only graduated there, but also has four students in the school district.

Her oldest, Trevor, was in both the old building and now in the new.

“I saw our school as a student, parent and someone who worked in it.

“Seeing all the students, teachers and staff getting to enjoy everything that comes with the new building…you can’t help but be extremely proud to be a Raider,” she said.

“So don’t be sad. It’s just a building. All our memories aren’t being torn down with it; we get to keep those.

“I love our school, new and old.”