Signed bricks in Grand Junction High Schools Theater Workshop depict the rich history of the department.

The signed bricks in the theater workshop hold loads of history and I found a way to remember them.

Grand Junction High School has been around for a long time and naturally is full of history, despite the signs date outside of the school, GJHS was built in 1956. Before this school there was another Grand Junction High school campus built in 1911 and closed in 1956.

This first school was located on what’s now known as 9th Street and Chipeta Avenue. 

To put this into perspective, the first GJHS campus ran through the entirety of World War II. 

After the first school was closed down a new one was constructed here on 1400 North 5th Street. Students will be moving into the third variation of GJHS next year. 

Although this current building is far too dangerous to remain in, it is still sad what we’ll be leaving behind. The saddest part for me are the signed bricks in the theater workshop.

Off to the side of the auditorium stage is a small storage room nicknamed “the shop”. The shop is used to store things from props, costumes, paint, tools and everything else you could need for a successful play. 

The shop is one of the oldest rooms having been part of the original main building, most of the bricks are original ones as well having never been replaced. If you walk onto the auditorium stage and look up you can see where the bricks stopped being replaced and can look at the original damaged foundations of the school. 

For many past years it was a tradition for senior theater students to sign a brick in the shop with one of the plays they were in, their name and the date. I took it upon myself to go take pictures of as many bricks as I could, some bricks going back as late as 1988.

As the school year of 2023-2024 comes to end, many theater kids both past and present are sad about having to say goodbye to the auditorium and shop, myself included. Although I was only in one play myself, I still have a lot of friends in theater and spend a lot of my time in the auditorium and shop, either helping out or simply just enjoying the silence. I won’t claim my sadness to say goodbye to the shop is greater than the actual theater tech team though. Most theater techs spend hours upon hours in the shop working on various things to keep the shows running. 

This amazing group of actors, and especially the techies, will be the last ones to sign the bricks of this school and I can think of no group of people more deserving of that honor. 

A theater can be a home for students who felt as if they never belonged. Many theater departments offer a safe space for queer students and those who feel unheard and unseen, but on the stage you are heard, you are seen, and someone does care. I found a particular brick in the shop that captures this sentiment well.

“Thank you for changing our lives, you saved my life and I will be eternally grateful. I love you and this dept that you have created” signed GLA- Class of 2018.

Soon all these bricks will be gone, some holding such deep and emotional history. The theater students who are graduating this year 2024 will be the last ones to leave a mark on this theater’s rich history. I am saddened to see these bricks go but I know that this wonderful theater department and the theater teacher Bryan Carlson will continue to make theater a home for all and to build their own history in the new school.