The Bath High School restoration effort has received Preservation North Carolina’s highest annual cash award for the progress it has made in restoring the building’s exterior to the way it looked in the 1920s.

Preservation North Carolina made the announcement of its $10,000 Stedman Award at a recent meeting in Asheville and specified that the money be used in completing the exterior restoration.

Sandra Harrison, vice president of Bath High School Preservation, and Elaine Harrison, an active participant in the restoration effort, accepted the award in Asheville.

“In giving the award to the Bath High School,” Harrison said. “Preservation North Carolina was saying, in effect, that we are one of the most important preservation projects underway in our state. We are proud indeed of this recognition from our state’s most important preservation organization.”

Harrison, who is also chairwoman of the school building committee, said she was confident that restoration of the school’s exterior would be completed well before spring and that construction would begin in April on rehabbing the downstairs as a new home for the Bath Community Library.

Harrison also noted Bath High School Preservation’s progress. The organization has replaced the school’s roof; restored more than two thirds of its windows; reconstructed the original auditorium portico; and restored the entryways that front Highway 92, the principal thoroughfare in North Carolina’s oldest town.