According to Graves County Schools Superintendent Kim Dublin, Graves County Middle School had a soft drink machine in the food lab malfunction overnight, which created a small fire and set off sprinklers and alarms.
“Somewhere around 12:30 last night, the phone rang because of a fire at the middle school,” said John Oldham, the district's maintenance director. “We got here about ten minutes later, along with the Graves County Fire and Rescue Squad and started containing the fire, along with the Mayfield Fire Department that responded as a back-up.”
Dublin said firefighters quickly extinguished the fire. She said quite a bit of water went into a couple of classrooms, but the damage was mostly contained to the food lab.
“We’re really fortunate that the damage was very limited,” Dublin said. “Firefighters had to break the window of a door to enter, but that’s easily replaceable.”
Dublin said seventh grade orientation will still take place at GCMS tonight. She said opening day activities for faculty and staff is still set for Wednesday, and the first day of school for students will still be Thursday.