Here are images of the design, including a 3-D rendering of the plan:
The groundbreaking:
The article from the school board website describing the groundbreaking:
Groundbreaking Ceremonies Held For Lancaster Elementary
(10-16-2009)
School System officials and members of the Joseph B. Lancaster family took part in ceremonies to break ground for the new Lancaster Elementary west of Madisonville Friday morning, October 16. The new school, located between Pine Creek Drive and Perrilloux Road off Hwy. 22, will bring 47 additional classrooms to the fast growing southwest St. Tammany area.
Lancaster was the first officially-recorded superintendent of the St. Tammany Parish Public School System and was known for his vision of an educational system designed to meet the needs of a growing area. A number of Lancaster ancestors, some from out-of-state, attended the groundbreaking.
Gasaway-Gasaway-Bankston of Hammond is serving as architect for the project, with Donahue-Favret Contractors building the $18.3 million facility. The total square footage of the two-story building will be 104,814. The new school’s grade configuration will be grades two through five.
The event took place two weeks after the groundbreaking ceremonies for a new elementary school in the Slidell area, the Henry Mayfield Elementary off U.S. 190 near Tammany Trace.
The School Board agreed last year to name the new Madisonville area elementary school in honor of Lancaster after Superintendent Gayle Sloan recommended him for the honor. She recounted his many contributions to the community as lawyer, district attorney, judge, and state representative. “He was a very high-achieving individual,” she said. He was named Superintendent by the first School Board in September of 1900, after it became an organized set of schools with parishwide administrative supervision and community governance.
Five descendants of Lancaster attended last year’s School Board meeting to name the school after their ancestor, including Lancaster's grandson, Judge Peter Garcia of the 22nd Judicial District. “Lancaster was a grandson of General David Bannister Morgan, who fought in the war of 1812 with Andrew Jackson and who is buried in Madisonville. So it is appropriate to name a Madisonville area school after him, since he has very strong connections to the Madisonville community,” Judge Garcia said.
Lancaster served as Superintendent of Schools until September, 1904, and died in 1916 in Franklinton.
