During the summer, Jessica Irwin and her Aunt Cindy Irwin discovered a piece of local history from the original Fishers Switch School while rummaging through old belongings at her grandparent’s farmhouse in Noblesville, Indiana. Alongside the 1897 diploma from her great-great grandpa, Charles Irwin, they found a graduation requirement test from the same year.

The diploma came tattered. The paper was stained with a dark yellow complexion. The diploma was framed with silver detailing and a symbol of history marked in the middle of the diploma in bronze. 

While the diploma had suffered damage over the decades, “It was in an area where there’s no temperature control, and then there’s some cracks in the barn wall, and snow could get in,” Jessica explained. “There was mouse poop on the frame, and the glass was broken. It really was not taken care of.”  Fortunately, the historical society helped restore the document and got it a new frame. 

On Dec. 6 the school celebrated the diploma and graduation requirement test being placed in the archive display outside the main gym. Fishers High School now has another connection to its origins, bridging a gap between history and generations while preserving Fishers history.  

Jessica expressed her appreciation of donating the diploma back to the school where it all started. 

“It means a lot that there’s something to do with it,” Jessica said.  “It’s not just going to sit in this old building for another 100 years gathering mouse poop. It’s going to be somewhere where it’s appreciated.”