Dennis Hall grew up calling the Number Nine Schoolhouse just “school.” He walked to it, sat in its classrooms, and learned to read inside its walls. Decades later, he showed up with a mower and cut the grass. He also plowed the parking area and refused payment for it.
Hall, known to everyone in Fayston as Babe, volunteered his mowing services as FNNS prepared for the June 7 work party. He’s a former student at the schoolhouse — one of the last generation of children to attend School District No. 9 before the building changed hands. His connection to the place isn’t sentimental in the abstract. It’s specific. He knows which room he sat in.
— Babe Hall at Number Nine Schoolhouse (far right in front of the teacher) —
Back Row: John Hall, Jr. • Conrad Renalls • Anna Livingston • Norma Massaie • Wanda Preston • Beverly Preston • Norma Brothers • Rita Moulton • Dennis “Babe” Hall
Middle Row: David Livingston • Janette Vasseur • Paula Livingston • Beatrice Preston • Delbert Livingston
Front Row: Sandy Martin • Easty Long • Spike Vasseur • John Preston
Teacher: Marion Barton
A Rainy Sunday in June
More than two dozen volunteers turned out on June 7 despite a steady rain. Crews split into work groups: some tackled the overgrown schoolyard and parking area with chainsaws and brush hogs; others went inside to clean out the attic and begin prepping the upper classroom. Someone got a bonfire going with a leaf blower and kept it burning through the wet.
Mountain Gardeners donated perennials that went in alongside newly installed stone steps at the lower entrance. Mad Trees Nursery supplied plants for two new front planters. Adam Whitney took down a large dead tree on the east side of the building. By noon, the grounds looked like a place people cared about.
At noon, the tools went down and a barbecue started. Board members, volunteers, neighbors, and supporters ate together in the schoolyard. The Bee App — a Vermont-based social platform whose Bee Fund Grant supported the day — brought their own team volunteers and helped make it happen.
A Neighborhood Showing Up for Itself
The Number Nine Schoolhouse served Fayston for generations. The families who sent children there, the students who sat in those classrooms, the neighbors who have watched the building sit quiet for years — they’re the reason FNNS exists. Babe Hall mowing the grounds is not a small thing. It’s the whole point made visible.
FNNS is looking for more people like Babe: neighbors with a connection to the building or a stake in what it becomes, who want to show up and do something. The work is real and ongoing. Mowing, clearing, cleaning, planning, cooking, showing up.