Students Experience Lessons in Restored One-Room Schoolhouse

HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Ringing a a handheld bell, a schoolteacher beckoned her students into the vintage classroom at Beverly Academy.

Gusts of cool wind swept through the doorway of the renovated schoolhouse, whipping through the teacher's salt-and-pepper hair as she clutched her black wool jacket to her chest.

"School's starting," the woman said as she walked back to her desk at the front of the room.

As 30 Indian Hills Elementary School fifth-graders stepped up into the schoolhouse, they also stepped back in time, the Kentucky New Era reported.

Dressed in clothing reminiscent of the period, retired teacher Marion Adams and Janet Bravard of the Pennyroyal Area Museum served as guides to education and recreation when the first Beverly School opened in September 1889.

In 1999, Christian County Historian William T. Turner and Chris Gilkey restored the schoolhouse, north of Herndon. Beverly Academy opened in September 2000 for tours and programs to educate the public about turn-of-the-century schools.

Survivor of helicopter fall involved in a truck rollover