As 2012 gets underway this month, the ever-uncertain future does portend a banner year (and many more to come) in Buffalo.
Specifically, the new Buffalo High School is on schedule - actually, well ahead of schedule - to open to students and staff this fall.
As well as offering a new learning environment, the $20 million facility on W.Va. 62 may well be distinguished for its high-technology curriculum and agricultural education opportunities.
Last fall, Putnam County's school board members voted to submit a proposal to the West Virginia Department of Education for $100,000 to make the new Buffalo High an innovation zone.
Schools which obtain the Department of Education's approval as innovation zones receive waivers to state policy that let them undertake new, research-based strategies.
"It's an ambitious program ... if we can get this grant, [Buffalo High] will be a showplace for the whole state," said board member Sam Sentelle in a Charleston Daily Mail article about the request.
The article also quoted Putnam County School Superintendent Chuck Hatfield, who said that to apply for the money, at least 80 percent of Buffalo's staff had to be on board with the proposal. To his knowledge, Hatfield said further, the consensus of the BHS staff was a unanimous 100 percent in favor.
Buffalo High Principal Richard Grim and other faculty members traveled to a high-tech high school in Columbus, Ind., several times last year for tours and ideas for the innovation zone status.
An agricultural science program is planned for the new school, as well.
According to Hatfield, Putnam County has the third-largest horticultural base in West Virginia, and, if the agricultural science program is approved, Buffalo High School would be the first of its kind in the Mountain State.
Ground was broken for the new Buffalo High in mid-September 2010. By mid-September of this new year, educational ground may well be broken, as well, for the future classes of Buffalo High School. We hope it comes to pass.