Bricks help fund EWU Reid Lab School meditation garden

Red, cinnamon and ivory bricks, engraved with five decades of memories, will soon be a focal point of the EWU Reid Lab School Meditation Garden on Eastern Washington University's Cheney campus.

“A Great Place to Teach” is the sentiment long-time Reid teacher Pat Cogley decided to have engraved on the brick she purchased in the fundraiser to build the meditation garden. “Reid had a ‘home-like' atmosphere where parents, siblings and teachers knew each other very well,” Cogley recently said about Reid.

“I enjoyed working at Campus School,” said Eloise Goodwin, who served as the school's secretary from 1960-1979. “I knew all the students, their families and EWU faculty.”

“There truly was an educational intimacy among college students, faculty and Reid students,” said Jack Martin, Reid Lab School Rememberence Committee (RSRC) member, Eastern alumnus, former Reid principal and EWU professor emeritus of education. “I liken it to the one-room school. There was a precious aspect of intimacy and trust. Parents sent their children there because they wanted them to be there.”

“Educational intimacy” and “family home atmosphere” are phrases often used to fondly describe Robert Reid Elementary School. It was built in 1959 on Eastern Washington College's Cheney campus to serve as a laboratory school, where the college's future teachers could watch progressive teaching in action through windows on the observation deck. Originally called Campus School, it was later renamed after the school's first principal, Robert Reid.

For the past 23 years, the school was a collaborative effort with Cheney Public Schools providing staff and curriculum and Eastern paying the facility's operating costs. It closed in June 2009, a victim of budgetary cutbacks and the need for costly repairs.

As a tight-knit community mourned Reid's closing, Cogley proposed to her friends an idea for a remembrance of Reid Elementary. From her notion grew the meditation garden. The 29-by-20-foot garden, with three colors of pavers, basalt rock fountain, lights and iron seating, will be constructed on Eastern's campus. The RSRC is planning a June 2010 dedication ceremony.

The committee is selling an unlimited number of personalized bricks to fund the $12,000-$15,000 project, which will be installed near the historic Cheney Normal School Heritage Center one-room schoolhouse.

“All funds go toward building the meditation garden, a place where students, faculty and public can sit, study, meditate and look at the one-room schoolhouse,” Martin said, “so donors are not restricted to a Reid connection – anyone who wants to support the garden can buy a brick.”

Red bricks are $100 each, cinnamon $500, and ivory bricks can be purchased for $1,000. Special messages on bricks are limited to three lines maximum with no more than 20 characters per line (allow one character for a space between words).

Donors must order bricks by March 10, 2010. To purchase a brick, mail your name, address, phone number and e-mail address, along with your special message as you want it engraved on your brick, and a check payable to Reid School Remembrance Fund, to Pat Cogley, Treasurer, 15206 S. Clear Lake Road., Cheney, WA 99004. A thank-you card and receipt will be sent to donors for their IRS tax-deductible contribution records. For more information, contact Martin at 235-4241.