Legacy Hallway to honor CHS graduates and history

CELINA - Celina City Schools' new grades 7-12 building will boast Legacy Hallway, a series of areas dedicated to showcasing the district's rich history, culture, achievements and accomplished figures.

"Overall, I think our (goal) is to honor the past with what we have in the present while maintaining our sights on the future," Superintendent Brooke Gessler told The Daily Standard. "As the district continues to move through changes, really structurally, we find a way to capture what our district looked like so we can maintain those memories, and for all those who enter the doors of our new 7-12 high school that they'll be able to reminisce and to have some nostalgic conversations."

Celina High School teacher Alicia Ball, who along with school facilities director Phil Metz is heading up the veterans/military history section, echoed those sentiments.

"We have a community that's big on tradition and we know that and we're proud of it, so we'd like to preserve it and show it off," Ball told the newspaper. "We've got some really exciting things happening in Celina, but we've come from some really exciting and wonderful things. So that's what we'd like our students and our community to see."

Legacy Hallway

School officials involved in the ongoing building project took a cue from Fostoria City Schools.

"As we were doing the overall building design, like a master plan, (project architect) Garmann Miller took us on a visit to different schools, and one of those schools we visited was Fostoria," Metz noted. "What was their dining area became just an open hall, and they decided to do some displays, and they turned that into their legacy hall and did a lot of plaques and uniforms and helmets and just things about different alumni that had graduated from their school."

Celina school officials liked what they saw.

"When we walked in, it was a really neat display, and the committee that we took up there to visit said this is something we'd like to recreate in our new building," Metz said.

Legacy Hallway in the new 7-12 building will be divided into five sections - athletics, veterans/military history, historical school architecture, student art and notable alumni. The sections will feature interactive displays, artifacts, photos and more. The sections will occupy multiple spaces on the east side of the building, rather than a single wall or corridor.

"We actually placed it in several different areas," Metz said. "It's in the main event entry, so it's on the east side of the building where anybody …. coming into a basketball game, volleyball game, wrestling match, they'll all go through that entryway."

Each section will be managed by various committees, the athletic director and coaches, and art teachers.

"There's display cases. There's stuff on the wall. It's digital. It's pretty much in every format that you can think of. We will have actual artifacts," Ball said about the plans shaping up for Legacy Hallway. "We have a good amount of stuff to start with, but we're always interested in seeing what people have in their basements and their closets. If there's something interesting out there we'd love to know about it."

The historical school architecture section will exhibit images of Celina school buildings dating back to 1833, while the art section will showcase the works of student artists, according to Metz.

One prominent feature will be an interactive screen in the historical architecture area.

"Again, we found some other schools that had this idea to where anybody can walk up, whether it's a student or a member of the public or somebody that's there for an event," Metz said. "When it's finished, it'll be searchable, so you can walk up and tap it like a big iPad and then start searching for anything (in the archive)."

School officials plan to make available a multitude of information, data and digitalized materials.

"Hopefully someday we will have all individual athletic records, team records, yearbooks, the hall of fame inductees, pretty much anything that would be searchable," Metz said. "The goal would be to go up and type an individual's name, and it will tag them to everything that they were involved in (during) their time at Celina High School."

Military section

Working with the Mercer County Historical Society, Ball and Metz arranged to take a photo of military artifacts housed at the Riley House Museum in Celina. The image will be superimposed on a fiberglass panel and serve as the backdrop to a veterans wall.

"We worked with some people there to see what we could get as far as military artifacts," Ball said. "All the stuff that's in the image actually comes from Celina and Mercer County soldiers or service members … which I think is really great and something to be proud of."

Ball and Metz are currently seeking to identify veterans who graduated from Celina City Schools. The veterans' names, rank, branch of military service and years/conflict will be included on the veterans wall.

"Those names that are currently being submitted will be on those acrylic panels and they will give the service members' name and date of service, and I believe that those are going to end up looking like dog tags when we're finished," Ball said.

"It's obviously set up for growth," Metz added. "So as we get more names as people realize what's going on, we anticipate getting more names over time and then adding panels or these acrylic sheets as they grow and as more folks graduate and enter military service."

A veteran submission form is available online at celinaschools.org.

"Honoring our military with our graduates, that is key because it's such a part of our culture and the community and (our) country," Gessler said.

Notable alumni

There will also be a special hallway section for notable alumni. The Celina High School Notable Alumni Committee was established in 2026 to recognize graduates who have made significant contributions in their professions, communities and fields of service while reflecting the values and spirit of Celina High School.

"We're recognizing some folks that went on and did some tremendous things after they graduated, so poets, writers, doctors, folks that served," Metz said. "This will be new. They will be inducted and then recognized, similar to our athletic hall of fame."

The notable alumni committee welcomes nominations from alumni, faculty, staff, students, family members and community members. Notable alumni candidates must be graduates of Celina High School, 10 years removed from graduation and demonstrate achievement in one ore more of the following areas: professional or career excellence; community service or civic leadership; contributions to education or youth; public service, military service or philanthropy; and athletic, artistic or academic distinction.

Nominations are being accepted at notable.alumni@celinaschools.org until March 1, 2027. Submitters are asked to provide as much supporting information as possible.

To preserve the prestige of the recognition, up to three honorees may be selected each year according to the school website. The committee may also choose not to make a selection in a given year if nominees do not sufficiently meet the established criteria.

The first wave of honorees will be inducted in fall 2027, Gessler said.

School board members in May voted 3-2 to move students to the new grades 7-12 building midway through the 2026-27 school year rather than at the beginning of the 2027-28 school year.

The district will complete the transition from the old school to the new facility Jan. 19-22, 2027, a four-day period in which there will be no school for students in grades 7-12. Once students return, they will begin the new semester.

Peterson Construction is reasonably confident that the district will be able to have students in session after the four-day move-in period, with potential "occupancy" occurring in December, according to Gessler.

An occupancy designation would allow people to be in the building weeks before the actual move.