June 17, 2022: The southeast corner of the Gladbrook school building, as seen last week during Corn Carnival.
A piece of paper on one of the few remaining windows of Gladbrook’s school building announces the fitness center — the half-million-dollar fitness center from 2008 — is closed. Although the building contents were cleared out three years ago, one clock was still hanging on the wall. The sinks in the elementary classrooms remained.
This week, the home of the Gladbrook Panthers is no more. The demolition is the coda to an ending that started in 2015 with the building’s closure and included an attempt to dissolve the Gladbrook-Reinbeck school district.
The Sun Courier has a story about the demolition, along with a history of the building that I supplied source material for. The bad blood generated by the closure continues today:
The Sun Courier reached out to several individuals for comment on this story but most declined, citing how painful the demolition, the closure, and even the consolidation are to discuss, as well as conflicts of interest that prevent them from going on record.
More photos are available with the Sun Courier story.