On the first day of school this year, 4-year-old Christopher Fuchs got to pick his animal cubby, and he already knew he wanted the deer. That’s the one his mom had when she went to Sunnybeam.
“I remember it very clearly,” said Jennell Fuchs, who attended the Mercer Island preschool in 1975. “We used to hide in the cubby at the end of the day and our parents would come and find us.”
That tradition was around when Sunnybeam was founded in 1957, well before Fuch’s time, and is still alive in 2007 as the national historic landmark celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Many of the school’s alumni still living on the Island remember not only which cubby they had when they were only 3 or 4 years old, but other traditions such as Clownie, the well-worn stuffed clown who comes knocking with a poem on a child’s birthday, getting wet playing in the rain, and Tupper, the shaggy sheepdog whose pups entertained two generations of children by taking trips down the playground slide.
Not all parents were thrilled to pick their children up with wet clothes, said Marienne “Nuki” Fellows, the grand matron who founded Sunnybeam with her lifelong friend Eleanor Wolf in 1957. But experiencing the world through all of the senses, digging in and getting your hands dirty is what Fellows said is “part of our religion.”
At 90 years old, the longtime Islander has the same gleam of curiosity and excitement in her eyes as the current brood of Caterpillars and Butterflies, as the students at Sunnybeam are called.
“It has been a wonderful building,” Fellows said. She retired in 1984, but maintains a strong presence at the school, on its board and in its daily scenery, showing up on occasion to check on a sapling tree or bring a new plant for the yard.
“I come when I’m invited, and sometimes when I’m not,” Fellows explains.
She has turned the operation of the school over to a new generation of educators, including lead teacher Michele Johnson, David Weston — who Johnson says “the boys adore” — and Claudine Koyama, a former music teacher from Malaysia who keeps the strong Sunnybeam tradition of singing alive.
Still running the science room after 20 years is veteran teacher Marianne Heney, who shows the kids experiments with colors, and teaches them about the animal kingdom with the help of Sweetie Pigs the cooing guinea pig and a miniature zoo of other creatures.
The school’s mainstays, such as Heney and the many Sunnybeam alumni whose children are carrying on the traditions, say the old building hasn’t changed much over the years. The same murals that were painted by Islander Tammy Szerlip 40 years ago still decorate the walls. The 4.3 acres of ground are still shared with the Mercer Island Saddle Club and the Children’s Dance Conservatory, where Fellows recalls dances and roller skating parties that were “the social life of the Island.”
But the revered building is both a blessing and a curse, said current board president Petra Varney. The listing of Sunnybeam on the National Registry of Historic Places in 1988 saved the property from the clutches of developers, but maintaining the 1918 schoolhouse has been costly.
A $15,000 renovation project in 2000 tackled the bathrooms. Now the roof needs to be replaced after last month’s windstorm caused significant damage. Even though it was new in 1993 with a lifetime guarantee, the company that provided it has since gone out of business, so the school is now looking at a $24,000 to $30,000 price tag.
To celebrate the 50-year anniversary, the school is planning an auction this spring which organizers hope will help raise money. The commemorative events will also include a big party in the fall for all Sunnybeam alumni.
With nearly half of the current class of 20 students boasting parents who also went to Sunnybeam, the staff is proud of the ties it has been able to maintain with Islanders who have stayed loyal since they were 3 years old.
For those who have lost touch, the school wants to reconnect with as many former students as possible. You may not be able to fit inside of it anymore, but your old cubby is waiting.
