By Mike Barnhardt
Enterprise Record

Linda Mace thought the Davie County Board of Commissioners and Board of Education had come to an understanding. The current Davie High School campus would be renovated.
She was honored when selected as a community member to be surveyed by Little Diversified Architectural Consultants, a group hired by the school board to study school facility needs in the county.
But she was taken aback when she was interviewed by a representative from Little. They already had their mind made up that a new high school is the best solution, she told county commissioners Monday night.
James Kowles also spoke to county commissioners Monday, telling them board of education chair Terry Renegar’s numbers on the needs at Davie High add up to a new high school.
County commission chair Carl Humphrey told the two he understands their concerns – but the concerns need to be addressed by the school board, not county commissioners.
“You’re not the first person to talk to me about this problem,” he told Mace, “but this is a school issue and not a county commissioner issue.”
Mace, a long-time advocate for renovations at Davie High, said the confusion surfaced last summer when the school board and county “came together” to fund renovations/additions at Davie High. A little over a month later, the school board was talking about a facilities study.
“I was once again confused about the course that our high school would be taking,” she said. She asked a school board member for minutes of the meeting in which renovations to Davie High were approved. She has yet to receive them, she said Monday.
But it was that facilities study – or the interview of her – that really got under her skin.
“I met with a Dr. Shrek (who) didn’t do what he was hired to do. I was there only to listen to his opinions. The lack of objectivity was obvious very early in the interview. He used words like ‘The high school is dangerous,’ ‘old,’ ‘on the dying side of Davie County’.” She was instantly offended …