Students, Officials Break Ground for New Vinson-Owen Elementary School

On Tuesday morning, kindergarten through fifth grade students at the Vinson-Owen Elementary School filed in to take their seats on mats laid out in front of an unearthed hill while the student band played “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Parents, teachers and town members watched at the groundbreaking ceremony for the rebuilding of Vinson-Owen Elementary School.

The ceremony consisted of songs sung by the student body and music teacher, Garo Saraydarian, poems read by fifth grade students Kelly Hunter-Lynch, Luke Gilgun and Emma Pruitt and speeches from Principal Grant Smith, Superintendent of Schools William McAlduff, Chairman of the Board of Selectmen Jim Johnson, State Rep. Jason Lewis and Jack McCarthy, executive director of MA School Building Authority.

Speakers highlighted that the rebuilding project is being funded 40 percent by the state and 60 percent by the taxpayers who voted for the $28,170,307 project to update the Vinson-Owen School last January.

"This is a great day for Winchester," Selectman Jim Johnson said.

All through out the songs, poems and speeches, play plastic hard-hats blew off the children’s heads during strong gusts of wind as they sat patiently and cheered on the progress of their beloved elementary school. Garo Saraydarian lead the children in singing “This Land is Your Land” and an original song entitled “VO Groundbreaking Song.” Then second grader Dylan Scharn dug the first shovel load of dirt to a roaring applause from his fellow students.

Garo Saraydarian struck up the student band for one more round of “When the Saints Go Marching In” to close out the ceremony. Soon, the sounds of singing and cheering will be replaced by heavy construction machinery as the estimated year and a half long project gets underway.