This is Buchanan School. It is located in Buchanan, Tennessee. I attended school there in my youth and so did many members of my friends and family. The school was open from 1921-1996. It’s half past the middle of nowhere in West Tennessee near the Kentucky Lake. There used to be an old feed co-op on the corner and a general store up the hill.
That little corner of the world was full of life and fully functional when I went to school there. Pickup trucks and tobacco haulers constantly buzzed by. If you look hard enough, you can imagine the walkway up through those big Kudzu smothered pine trees that led right up into the basketball gym.
I spent so many hours in that gym playing basketball, attending Fall Festivals, taking class photos, doing cake walks, cuttin’ up with my friends, getting in trouble with Mr. Jackson, Coach Melton, or Mr. Wyatt.
To be there as an adult feels like I’m in another dimension. I mean did this place really exist? It looks like it has been closed for 100 years. When I attended school there, walking those halls, seeing the photos of the graduating classes of 1924, 1937, 1958, 1965, 1971, I always had a strong sense of all of the lives that lived and learned in those hallways. I never could have imagined how much I’d learn about the ways of the world in those hallways. It’s where I learned about friendship. It’s where I learned about betrayal. It’s where I learned about addiction. It’s where I learned about feeling alone. It’s where I learned about the importance of community and it’s where I learned about love.
In 1990, Buchanan School was the first place I ever played music in front of an audience other than my family. It changed my life, forever. I’ll always be grateful to Mr. Don Wyatt for encouraging me to share the gift of music. I’ll also be forever grateful to all of my classmates who gave me an opportunity to share something that would fuel my purpose throughout my entire life. To me music and love are synonymous. Thank you Buchanan School for teaching me to cherish that with every part of my being.