news-record.com

MCLEANSVILLE — To an arson investigator, a year isn't that long. It often takes a year or more to make an arrest, said Eddie Harris, an investigator with the Guilford County fire marshal's office. Harris is working on the Eastern Guilford High School arson.

But to high school students, a year can be an epoch. And in the year since Eastern Guilford burned down, student leaders say they have grown in maturity and stayed focused on the future.

Investigators still occasionally get tips, but now Harris says they are often little more than rumors.

"I think we're closer than we were six months ago," Harris said. "The pool before was over 1,000 suspects," he said. "That has narrowed significantly to a manageable number."

But Harris said he is waiting until he has enough information to persuade a jury to convict a suspect, not just enough to make an arrest.

"Time is on my side," he said. "We know the information is out there, we just have to go get it."

But getting it, at this point, means someone coming forward with new information.

"They are going to realize that something they saw or heard is more important than they thought it was," Harris said.

As time passes and emotions cool, he hopes the young people will overcome a fear of speaking up.

"I think the goal was just to disrupt school for a while," Harris said. If the Nov. 1, 2006, fire had been in any other part of the school, Harris said it would have been discovered and extinguished like other small school fires last year. And while fire investigators are doing their job, so are Eastern students.

"If anything, it has refocused the students and staff on what is important," said Travis Reeves, who became Eastern's principal after Lisa Cooke resigned at the end of the 2006-07 academic year. "I think our students understand what's important."

Eastern met federal and state testing goals last year, despite the fire's midterm disruption. The school was among 13 Guilford County schools recognized by Newsweek magazine for students taking Advanced Placement tests.

"All these kids, this is their one shot at college," Reeves said. "We have to focus on academics. Just because a fire happened doesn't mean all those things stopped."

At a media event in the school's library Tuesday, the student body president and five senior class officers gave prepared responses to questions a TV reporter submitted to the principal over the weekend.

In their remarks, the students were unwaveringly positive. "We couldn't ask for anything better," said Amber Ingle, senior class secretary. "Even though we're in pods, we still have athletics. We still have clubs."

For Eastern High students, this year has meant the difference between having a school building — a structure ingrained with tradition and artifacts from parents and siblings who came before — and having a village of trailers.

But Jessica Deal, vice president of the senior class said: "It wasn't the building that made our school, it was the people in it."

Senior Class President Sarah Gann said she finally feels like she's in high school again. Although she feels sad about the loss, Gann said she thinks about all of the possibilities the future holds.

Reeves prevented reporters from directly asking the students questions Tuesday morning. He said they needed to stay focused on academics.

Today — the one-year anniversary of the fire — is a tricky day for everyone. No one wants it to be different. But no one wanted it to be different last year, either.

"We have scabs; they are very easily knocked off, said Pam Dawson, president of the Parent-Student Teacher Association.

Despite how far students have come, "It's not a celebration," she said. "It's not over with yet. We're still in limbo."

So today, students and teachers will dress in blue and gold. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes will hold their "meet me at the pole" prayer — a day later than their usual Wednesday meeting. Teachers will show a short memorial video in PAWS — Eastern's relationship-intensive version of homeroom. And the school will observe a moment of silence at 12:20, the beginning of fourth period, about the time the fire was discovered a year ago.

Contact Sonja Elmquist at 373-7090 or selmquist@news-record.com