You’d hate to see it happen. The trusty old elementary school you attended years ago has seen its last crop of students and finally, while standing on its last leg, the building is set to be leveled.
No more teachers, no more books, no future except to be a dusty pile of bricks and wood where your memories once lived, not to mention the years of state taxpayer funds that were pumped into the structure for construction and maintenance costs.
But in the case of one school, the townspeople are saying, “not so fast.”
The Town of Frannie purchased Frannie Elementary School several years ago. The school was built in two phases, originally in 1955 and added to in the 1970s and then closed after the 2005-06 school year with the consolidation of school facilities into the new Rocky Mountain Elementary School in Cowley. 
Through grant funding, the town plans to refurbish the school and continue to use it as a multi-purpose town hall and administration offices. The building also houses a public library, exercise room, town meeting space, kitchen, cafeteria, law enforcement office, multiple storage rooms and a gym that is open several days a week for kids to use after school. With the completion of another grant project, a new town shop will be connected to the former elementary school.
“It was tough enough for the community when we lost the school, we didn’t wan to see the building lost, sold, demolished or fall into disrepair,” said Frannie Mayor Jerry Dart. “The state has been a real help. If we didn’t have grant funding, we wouldn’t have had the money to move into the building.”
After the town brought in a consulting company to survey the townspeople, they found the majority wanted the town to take control of the vacant Frannie Elementary School. The town worked with District No. 1 Supt. Kevin Mitchell and took over ownership of the building in 2006 for a minimal cost, Dart said. The town council has since discussed several options of what to do with the building, Dart said. The 2005-07 Town council voted to move the town administration offices to the building.
The current $415,308 project is being funded through the Wyoming Capital Facilities Grant program, which is designed to help communities reclaim and make use of old public buildings. The project was approved by the State Loan and Investment Board in November. Dart said the Frannie Elementary project was perfect for the grant.
“The state has grant funding geared toward acquiring and refurbishing/upgrading excess government buildings,” he said, also noting the emphasis of the building to be used for community functions. “We really fit the bill to a T.”
The grant comes with the requirements of a minimum of four years of occupancy, quarterly reporting to the state about the project’s status and substantial completion within one year, he said.
Though the town will expend some money on the project, Dart said the grant will cover all costs of getting the building operational. Because the town will use the former school for many functions, they’ll be able to sell a few other town-owned buildings. Dart said there have been some concerns voiced that the project could bankrupt the town, but he said, with the help of grants, the project will actually save them money.
“Once we dispose of other properties we’re going to be money ahead in the future,” he said. “And we’ll have everything we’ve ever dreamed of as a community with room to spare.”
The new school will provide a huge increase in space from the former town offices, Dart said. Before, it was “standing room only” for citizens who wanted to attend a town council meeting.
The 13,456-square-foot school is so large that a hallway and five classrooms are currently closed off to public use to save on utility costs. The space is currently being used for storage, but it could also be utilized as a dedicated area for health clinics and other events, Dart said. If the community grows, the space will be available to accommodate future needs, he said.
But with all of that space, there are a lot of things to be fixed.
“When we approached the SLIB, they told us it was a one-time grant, not just something to fund maintenance of the building,” Dart said. “They encouraged us not to be really conservative and fix real structural things that need attention and things that will provide use of the building for years to come. And that we’ll have the money to run it.”
Included in the town’s proposal was concrete substructure work, fixing an uneven gym floor and removing tiles containing asbestos, a new heating system including a completely redone boiler system, and a new roof to address some leaks.
Dart said because of the building’s age, the first priority of the project is to remove any asbestos beginning as early as February. He said there is currently no exposed asbestos and no threat to the public, but asbestos is being used to insulate some pipes in the basement. The asbestos containing gym floor tiles pose no threat, he said, but the gym will have to be sealed off and the building will be closed for some time during their removal.
The project will then move on to structural and cosmetic improvements of the building including concrete work on substructure basement walls, converting two bathrooms to be ADA compliant (wheelchair accessible), a new heating system and roof.
Dart said the town council decided to move forward with the project rather than wait to address problems that will only get worse over time if left unattended. He mentioned things like broken windows, increased water damage and other maintenance costs that would have been incurred if the building were to sit empty.
“We’re starting now so the elements don’t take a foothold of the building,” Dart said. “We hope to guarantee it will be here for years and years.”
Though not a priority of the project, grant funding will also cover paint and carpet where needed and lawn sprinklers.
Seeing the school put to use has been “a lot better than the alternative,” said town maintenance director Terry Moore, who attended elementary school in the building years ago. “I have a lot of memories in this building, both good and bad,” he laughed.
When Frannie Elementary School closed, teachers packed up and left, but much equipment was left behind. The town has put much of it to use – desks, bookshelves and chairs in the library and other furniture elsewhere – but the rest of it sits in unused rooms. Moore said the town contacted the Huntley Project School in Montana to see if they had a use for the equipment after the school burned, but has not heard back from them.

Through a County Consensus block grant, the Town of Frannie has received about $80,000 in funding to construct a 30-by-40-foot shop building that will be attached to the former elementary school. It will be attached to an adjacent classroom that will be used for storage. Dart said the new shop will have an overhead door for large equipment to pass through and will be much better than the current situation, with town equipment kept in various buildings around Frannie.
The town will match 15 percent of the grant, which has been budgeted for, Dart said. Gravel has been placed at the location of the new shop and construction will begin when the ground thaws, he said.
A portion of the grant funds will be used to install a water dock and pour a concrete pad in front of the Deaver-Frannie Fire Department building in Frannie.
The library is open to the public Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 6 p.m. and the gym is open usually on Monday, Wednesday and Friday after school.