Mars Hill alumni of African-American school lead restoration effort

Phillip Ervin, left, Charity Ray, center, and Dorothy Coone stand in front of the school they once attended and now hope to help restore.

Phillip Ervin, left, Charity Ray, center, and Dorothy Coone stand in front of the school they once attended and now hope to help restore.

from the Asheville Citizen-Times, Mar. 13, 2012. Written by Melissa Dean

http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20120314/LIVING/303140021/Mars-Hill-alumni-African-American-school-lead-restoration-effort

More than 60 years later, school days have returned for Dorothy Coone.

She’s among the former students working to restore the Anderson Rosenwald School she attended here in the 1940s, now a deteriorated shell of a building.

“It has been there so long, so many generations have gone there,” Coone said. “It goes back more than just two or three generations, so just to see it sit there and disintegrate is just sad.”