Former Monett High School building demolished

This past week crews for Vaughn Construction began demolishing the South Building at Eighth and Scott streets in Monett, once part of Monett High School. Built in two sections, the building housed the school science lab but had been out of use since the middle school moved to the high school campus. Board members decided to repurpose the site as a parking lot. Operations director Steve Garner said the cost of renovating the structure was prohibitive. Staff had no interest in using it for classrooms that would involve bringing students across Ninth Street and facing traffic again, as had been done when the middle school was there. Garner mentioned at the May school board meeting past faculty and students had commented on social media that they found the building “horrible,” but emotions still reflected nostalgia for it. (Photo by Murray Bishoff)