We are Inskip, hear us roar!
Wow. That dynamite theme from the Inskip Elementary School Lions has resonated with the Inskip Lions Club. A mural coming soon will showcase, “their Lion and ours,” said school principal Lynn Jacomen. She led a school tour for Inskip Lions Club members on Monday.
The school will mark its 110th anniversary in spring 2022, but it boasts a $6.5 million expansion and renovation that opened in August 2019. So, Inskip has it all – history, tradition and high-tech amenities. The school serves roughly 575 students with a 65-member staff.
Lynn Jacomen
Jacomen has been the principal since 2017, after moving here from Virginia. Megan Blevins is assistant principal since 2018, after a stint at Brickey-McCloud.
Kids and teachers were in school during the tour. Inskip offers year-round pre-school for age 4, and a summer program for others. With about five classrooms per grade level, K-5, “the new building is pretty much full,” Jacomen said. The expansion added a 29,000-square foot wing to the existing building. It included 12 classrooms, an administrative office suite, a media center, art room, music room, teacher work area and an expansion of the cafeteria. The former library is now a classroom. The former office suite is now a special ed classroom. And the campus is secure.
At the ribbon-cutting, Jacomen said, “Any time we can make students safer and make it easier for them to learn, that’s a great achievement.”
The Inskip Lions Club is a long-time partner of the school, providing supplies, books for the library and a recent District 12-N donation of $250 for the school’s food bank. A checklist provided by Betty Jo Mahan showed the Lions buying 10,800 No. 2 pencils, 60 pencil pouches with zippers, 60 pencil boxes, 60 pink rectangular erasers, 180 white 3-ring binders and 120 packs of notebook divider packs for back-to-school in the fall.
Inskip Baptist Church is donating 360 backpacks, according to the list, and there are empty spots alongside items such as glue sticks, crayons, scissors, index cards, cap erasers, yellow highlighters, ear buds or headphones and washable markers. If anyone can help, contact a member of the Lions Club or phone the school office at 865-689-1450 between 8 a.m. and noon each Wednesday during the summer.
Take a minute for your own tour of Inskip Elementary in this photo carousel:
On the tour
Trunk filled with school supplies
Pickup filled with school supplies
Lions tour new wing
1965 BOE leaders
Awesome garden
Kiln in art room