ST. STEPHENS CHURCH -- The old Marriott School stands empty in King and Queen County but remains full of possibilities to a community group working to save it.

"I can see stuff going on here all the time," said Alan Sader after he climbed the steps to a dusty stage overlooking the building's empty auditorium. "It's real exciting to contemplate."

Sader is a member of the King and Queen Community Development Corp., which organized several years ago to rescue the school after it had been abandoned.

Group president Wallica Gaines got the idea in 1999 after going to the nearby Newtown polls to vote and getting pulled into a conversation about the building's fate.

"Everybody was saying, 'What are they going to do with it?'" Gaines recalled. "Later I thought, 'Who is the "they" they are talking about?'" She organized the corporation in 2001 and began canvassing the rural community for suggestions.

Since then, the group has raised more than $300,000 in local contributions and won about $70,000 in state grants to stabilize the old building on Newtown Road and fix its leaky roof. The work has also gained the 12,000-square-foot school a place on the U.S. Department of Interior's National Register of Historic Places.

Built in 1938, the school served students until 1992, first as a segregated high school and then as an elementary school after desegregation. The county shut the building when its students were absorbed by Lawson-Marriott Elementary. For a while, between 1994 and 2001, the old school housed a regional library branch.

Now, as Gaines walks through the old building's eight classrooms, she imagines Marriott School's potential as a community and cultural center serving not only King and Queen but also Essex and King William counties.

She sees a place where local residents can take music lessons, learn to paint, attend classes on computer literacy or drop their kids off for after-school activities. Maybe, one room could be set up with a kitchen as a culinary classroom, she says, and the giant auditorium could handle wedding receptions and other gatherings in a region short on venues for big gatherings.

The corporation is now planning how it will seek grants to fund about $2 million in restoration work.

"This could be the jewel here in the middle of several counties," Sader said. He can imagine visiting theater companies entertaining at the school or a restored stage and auditorium inspiring home-grown thespians.

Over in what might have been an English classroom, words from Shakespeare remain legible in chalk on a blackboard and hold meaning for the corporation's quest.

Someone had quoted the famous line from "Hamlet": "To be or not to be."
Contact Lawrence Latané III at (804) 333-3461 or llatane@timesdispatch.com.