By By Adrienne McKenzie
After a night of fun at the Huxford Elementary School fall carnival last Thursday evening, students, faculty and staff arrived only to find a mess at their front door steps Friday morning.
According to HES principal Donna Silcox, the act of vandalism affected everyone involved at Huxford.
"I was very disappointed any person would vandalize the school and cause such disappointment in the children," Silcox said. "This has caused the faculty, staff and community members to be very upset. Everyone has worked hard to make the school look nice. It was very hard to look into the faces of the children when they got to school and saw the destruction."
According to Escambia County schools superintendent Billy Hines, the students came to school Friday and saw the destruction from the vandalism. However, as the day progressed, things at Huxford began to look up.
"It happened sometime between the end of the carnival and the next morning," Hines said. "It was just meanness, but everything was back to normal by lunch the next day."
Silcox said there were many acts of cruelty performed on school grounds with the vandalism.
"As far as expenses go, they tore up all the birdhouses, totally destroying them," Silcox said. "Also, they tore the siding off of our shed. They egged the doors and burst all the pumpkins. They destroyed all the things we'd done to beautify the school for fall and they turned off all the breakers of the building. They also tore the benches off the picnic tables."
Silcox said after the act of vandalism, she has had much support in cleaning up the mess from teachers and community members.
"Parents were very supportive and kind to me about it," she said. "They helped to clean it up. It's horrible that parents, faculty and children worked so hard to have something beautiful out there just for someone to tear it up."
According to Escambia County Sheriff's Office chief deputy John Gleaton, this is not the first time HES has been vandalized. But, the department has some ideas about who caused the damage.
"We've had several instances of vandalism in the past few weeks and have had deputies monitoring the school closely," Gleaton said. "We have several leads on that."
"They are investigating it and have some suspects already," Silcox said about the Sheriff's Office's involvement.
Anyone with any information on the vandalism, please call the Escambia County Sheriff's Office at 867-0304.