PARIS – Several hundred people turned out Sunday afternoon to dedicate the new Paris Elementary School with songs, gifts and praise.

“This is the first time we can dedicate a single (elementary school) building in the town of Paris,” School Superintendent Mark Eastman told the crowd of students, parents, staff, committee members and others who gathered for the nearly hour-long ceremony.

Students from the former Fox Elementary and Madison Avenue schools attended their first day of classes at the Paris Elementary School on High Street last February after a nearly five-year planning and construction period. That marked the first time all kindergarten through sixth-grade students from Paris were educated together under the same roof since SAD 17 was formed about 40 years ago.

“It’s our students who make our school come alive every day,” Eastman said before introducing each class, whose students came forward presenting gifts that ranged from library books to a new podium to singing a song and taking the “cardinal pledge.”

Students in the audience said they were excited about the new building.

“I like the art room,” said Kaitlyn Moss, a fifth-grade student whose sister Ashlei said she preferred the gym.

Eastman recognized the people who were able to bring the school’s construction forward, including representatives of general contractor Payton Construction and some tradespeople who worked on the project, artists who contributed their artwork and others.

Maureen Howard, director of the Education Exchange Program, said the program established at Paris Elementary School between students and the Maine Veterans’ Association was already under way with the exchange of cards and art work.

Building Committee Chairman John Jenness, who helped steer the building through its construction phase, also spoke of his desire to keep the former Fox Elementary School in municipal or educational use.

“We’re dedicating a school building that will be educating the students of Paris through the next century and educating our great, great, great grandchildren. Think about the power of that,” concluded Eastman.