By FULLER ROYAL

The 30-year-old Columbus Christian Academy has its first new building and at 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, about 95 students in grades seven through 12 will enter it for the first time.

The new building is on Smyrna Road, a few hundred yards off of the U.S. 701 Bypass, built on land that CCA bought 25 years ago.

Now, the first graduates of the school will watch as their children attend class in a modern, spacious facility that has been the dream of CCA for all of those 30 years.

Previously, the junior and senior high schools were housed in CCA’s home church – Missionary Alliance – on Madison Street in Whiteville.

With the move, classroom space grows from 3,000 square feet to 12,000 square feet. That’s enough room to accommodate up to 150 students – 60 more than they could host last year.

CCA Principal Debbie Edwards said that’s a good thing, too. She has dozens of students on a waiting list.

Missionary Alliance Pastor Erron Hubbell said that the largest room in the old school is not as large as the smallest classroom at the new facility.

The classrooms are about 24 by 26 feet. Students had even outgrown the “big” room at Missionary Alliance.

The new school features a principal’s office and reception/secretary area. There is a large multi-purpose room where meals will be served and students can hold assemblies. There’s a multimedia room and a room for working on the yearbook and publications.

Principal Edwards said that the new building is phase one. Plans call for the construction of a gymnasium and the later addition of the kindergarten through sixth-grade classes.

CCA’s goal is to have all of its students on the same grounds. The K-6 students, for the mean time, will continue to hold classes in the old telephone offices on West Calhoun Street.

CCA is the latest in a group of new schools opening or underway. The week before last, Williams Township Elementary School opened its new building.

The new Carolina Adventist School in South Whiteville is nearly complete and the Columbus Charter School is expected to begin construction later this year of its new facility near Collier’s Crossroads.