NEW LIFE – What was once the gym floors at the old Hilltop School building now add to the West Unity Pizza Oven’s nostalgic decor as table tops.

The trend of rising new schools has brought with it the trend of demolishing the old structures that served as schools in decades prior. The watching of this demolition often tugs on the heartstrings of the alumni who, whether having graduated recently or several years before, think back to their days in the school building and of the fond memories that were created there.

The alumni of the old Hilltop High School, however, now have the opportunity to relive some of their memories. All they have to do is go grab a slice of pizza from the West Unity Pizza Oven and sit at one of the restaurant’s newly designed tables that were once the gymnasium floors at the old Hilltop school before the school was torn down in 2010.

The Pizza Oven just recently acquired the floors that the tables are made from as a donation from Mark Taylor of Archbold, who had purchased the flooring at auction for $900 prior to the school’s demolition. The donation to the Pizza Oven came after Taylor had a discussion with Pizza Oven owner Matt Wyse about Wyse’s desire to refinish the old tables at the establishment and how the gym floor might be used. With no other real use for the floors, Taylor went ahead and gave them to the Wyse’s.

Working together Matt and his father, Stewart Wyse, trimmed out the tables to fit into the existing table bases. It somehow seems fitting that the floor of the old gym would find its way to the Pizza Oven as the new table tops so more than give a new life to the old gym floor. They also add to the Pizza Oven’s nostalgic decor of pop culture memorabilia. Now as patrons grab a slice of pizza at the Pizza Oven, they not only get the opportunity to walk down memory lane by gazing at the vast amounts of television, movie, music, and sports memorabilia; they also have the opportunity to somehow sit at the floor that many of them once played on, danced on, and walked on while they were a student at Hilltop Schools.

With a good portion of the Pizza Oven’s patrons being alumni that graduated from the old Hilltop school building, it just seems right that the old gym floors would find themselves back to within just a couple of blocks of where they started from.