Robbie Robertson/The Meridian StarHartley Peaver jokes with State Sen. Terry C. Burton as he gets ready to hand Newton County Superintendent of Education J.O. Amis the keys to the 125,000-square-foot facility in Decatur that was donated to the district on Friday. In addition to the building, 38 acres were also donated to the district.

DECATUR — Christmas came early for the Newton County School District on Friday.

While the school was being celebrated for being an “A” school district, it also celebrated the donation of a 125,000-square-foot facility and 38 acres to the school district. The building is located next to Newton County High School on Miss. Hwy 503 just outside of Decatur. The donation is valued at more than $3 million.

Hartley Peavey, founder and CEO of Peavey Electronics Corporation, signed the deed to donate the facility to the Newton County School District, finishing years of negotiation and urging from State Sen. Terry C. Burton of Newton.

“We had this facility and vacated about seven or eight years ago,” Peavey said. “We saw it sitting there and with ongoing discussions with other folks and Terry C., who has been the catalyst in all of this. He has said that I needed to consider donating it to the school. It just went on and on, and, finally, as we came up to the end of this year, because I’m going to retire soon, that it would be a good thing to follow Terry’s advice and donate it to the school.”

Peavey, who is a long-time supporter of public education, hopes the facility, which will be named the Peavey Center for Education, will be used to help students in the vocational arts.

“We have always been supportive of education,” Peavey said. “It’s my hope that the school will use this to teach people skills where they can make a living. Academics is all well and good, but we need to learn trades like wiring a house or something like that.”

By Peavey’s side was his wife Mary, who serves as president of Peavey Electronics.

“I would love to see a little music classroom located there,” Mary Peavey said. “And maybe a visual arts program. We used to have those things and as times have been tougher, the government has eliminated those things that we used to have in public schools in Mississippi. We need that in Mississippi.”

All parties involved praised the work of Burton as the “catalyst” of making the deal happen.

“It’s the end of the year and Hartley is talking about retiring and the property is just sitting there,” Burton said. “He sees it as a negative for the property sitting there. It makes perfect sense for the school district to have that property.

“I just wouldn’t let it go. The first time we talked about it was five or six years ago. They were trying to sell the property and the school district couldn’t pay what they thought the property was worth. It kind of faded, but every time I would see Hartley and Mary I would bring it back up again, about the need for the district to have that property.

“It got to the point where he might make it available, and one thing led to another, and today he signed his signature on the deed and now the school has the property. It’s going to be good for this school district to have that piece of property.”

Superintendent of Education J.O. Amis was all smiles as he received the property.

“It will help us fulfill some dreams that I and our school board have had and will give us a whole lot of opportunity to enhance some classes that we already teach and perhaps some classes that we aren’t teaching,” Amis said. “I have some ideas, and I know the school board has some ideas, but until we go in and look at the building and see what those opportunities are, I would hesitate to say. It is a big building, and it has a lot of opportunities. Before we do anything, we want to get the best bang for our buck.”

In the last year, the school district had a bond issue voted down that would have provided funding for a fine arts center at the school, but Amis would not say what he has in mind for the facility.

“It would definitely give is the opportunity in the fine arts department,” Amis said. “As Mr. Peavey said earlier, he would like to see it used for the vocational purposes. It really does have so many opportunities. I think with the size of the building and the size of the property, there will be several things that help us help our kids.”

Peavey Electronics, headquartered in Meridian, opened the Decatur facility in 1984 and shut down operations at the plant in 2010.

Also in attendance at the school on Friday was Mississippi Superintendent of Education Dr. Carey Wright as she celebrated the school district for being one of 15 A-rated school districts in the state of Mississippi.