Seth Parker presents, fresh off the press
Elkmont Elementary School
The photo session
Forty-eight classrooms, pre-K through fifth grade, on Alabama Highway 127 in Elkmont. Bailey-Harris Construction built it for Limestone County Schools — a $34 million project all told. The doors opened August 2, 2024, three days after the ribbon-cutting, with around six hundred students. And the gymnasium doubles as an ICC-500 storm shelter, which might be the most Alabama sentence on this site: the room where the kids play basketball is also the room engineered to stand through a tornado.
The Credits
from the recordThe Honors
what the jury sawThe awards go to the architects, designers, and builders. My images simply showed the architecture in its best light.
- IIDA Alabama
- Best in K-12 Educational Design
Liner Notes
the record, in fullThe Building
The Award
In April 2025, Chapman Sisson took Best of Education (K-12) at IIDA Alabama’s IDIE Awards for this school. The award is the firm’s and the building’s. My photographs went along in the submission — and when the jury said yes, the win was theirs. The pictures just held the door.