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The back story

Mary Cameron, a 1969 graduate of Duluth Central, recently explained her vote, as a member of the Duluth School Board, to close the 40-year old New Central High School by saying that it wasn't Central High!

Italian stone carvers didn't work the masonry on New Central but Duluth certainly showed its affection for the school by carving New Central into the breathtaking hillside overlooking the Atlantic Ocean's western most port. In fact, Duluth Central is the only modern high school in Duluth. Denfeld was built during the Roaring Twenties and East is an addition to an old junior high of the same vintage.

Mary Cameron is dead wrong to dismiss the new Central as not the Central High of her memories. You, as a Central grad, may have written your name in Old Central's bell tower but it was your fellow students not the building itself that made Central your alma mater. 

Today's Central is the same school its always been. It has kids from every walk of life; rich, poor from downtown and the townships. They are knitted together by their fierce loyalty and they are jealous of their diversity. In its place the Duluth School Board is creating a new high school on the cramped Ordean site that will shunt most of this diversity to Denfeld. It will sell the $30 million dollar Central site for a paltry ten million rather than use it for a middle school and then will build a $45 million middle school by west Duluth's Wheeler field. Central's spanking new athletic facilities and its glorious 80 acres of expandable acreage will be sold for a fraction of its value because its sale might raise two month's of operating expenses. How shortsighted. 

If you haven't heard about the current Duluth School Board you are in for a shock. Closing Central is the key to a half billion dollars building program in the toughest economy since the Depression which was decided without the customary approval of voters in a referendum. The public is furious. Last November when the School Board asked for additional money for the classroom 70 % of the voters turned the request down. Let Duluth Vote which was originally organized to fight this injustice is now Central High's only hope for survival. 

All it will take to save Central is a one year's delay closing Central until a new school board is elected next November. Duluth voters want to change the Board. They need you to help them slow the current Board down. Let Duluth Vote will do that in court.

Go to the Let Duluth Vote website. That is also where you will contribute online or learn where to mail a donation. 

If you want to see what your fellow classes have contributed to save Central look here. Give us a day or two. We're just up online.