EAST TAMPA - More than 450 students and staff celebrated the 100th anniversary of Lomax Elementary School this month.
Events included a re-creation of a traditional maypole dance, then-and-now videos of Lomax and the release of 50 Monarch butterflies into the butterfly garden. The garden opened in 2002 when Lomax, 4207 N. 26th St., became a magnet school for math, science and technology.
Lomax opened in 1907 as a grammar school affiliated with the Gilchrist Institute, a private school supported by the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The school is named for AME Bishop Thomas Lomax.
It has been an elementary, a sixth-grade center and a high school, and during segregation served students from Tampa's black neighborhoods.
The ties to local neighborhoods remain strong, Assistant Principal Ardre Orie said.
"Community is huge to us," she said.
As a magnet school, Lomax has expanded to include students countywide.
"We're really proud of that," Orie said.
Among the school's alumni are: Henry Washington, a school district area director; Shaylia Hall, principal of Marshall Middle School; and Jamie Iglesias, a Lomax kindergarten teacher.
Kathy Steele
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