At 2525 Churchill Drive, as it exists today. It was built in 1956 as part of the School Board’s frantic effort to close the backlog created by the Depression, then WW II. Back then the Bear Clan had opened Gay Meadows Subdivision, donated 6-acres of it for a new Presbyterian Church, and given 14-acres fronting McGehee Road to the School Board for this facility. For the first two years the new church held services in the school lunchroom. Later the school and church parking lots connected, which afforded nice overflow parking for each. The school playground was separated from the subdivision by a scenic drainage ditch, but the Bears built a footbridge, providing a safe passage for neighborhood children (it also afforded easy access to tadpoles and other wondrous creatures that lived in the ditch). The Daddy Bear was president of the School Board, and Minnie was the Momma Bear. The oldest Bear son was senior officer in the church. It was such a grand concept. And I was complicit: I bought the third lot sold in all of Gay Meadows, sent my children to Bear School, was an officer in the church, and an officer in the school PTA, and my oldest daughter was baptized in the school lunchroom, the very first one. . . . Those were grand days.

-Charles Humphries