The University Lab School fire was dramatic for those who live nearby, but it was personal for those who taught and went to school there.

Alison Hartle, who teaches English, hula and chant, was thinking of the years of work as she and other teachers watched flame and smoke erase one school program after another.

"The chorus room, all the music, the entire program (is gone)," Hartle said. "The weight room is gone. Uniforms for everything — every single sport."

"It used to be the entire elementary school building, back in the day. Now, it's the entire drama program, the entire orchestra program, the entire chorus program. All the hula stuff (was there)," she said.

She doesn't know "how many tens of thousands of dollars worth of instruments" are gone.

"They share instruments, but there's probably 80 different pieces in there, if not more," Hartle said. "It's sort of overwhelming. There's no way to even start to think about how we're going to replace that."

Kevin Olafsson, the orchestra teacher at the school for three years, said he had left early in the day and learned of the fire when an administrator called and told him the music building was burning.

"I'm in shock right now," he said when contacted at home last night. "This is my job. This is the focus of my life right now and I'm not sure what is going to happen."

Diamond Tachera, a student who just finished her eighth grade year at the school, was at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., yesterday but heard about the fire when schoolmates called her.

"It was really sad," she said on her cell phone. "I grew up in that school. I have memories of friends from every nook and cranny of it."

Diamond said one of her favorite classes was orchestra, and she and her friends were concerned about their teacher, Olafsson.

"He loved our instruments," she said. "We think he is probably very sad."

BUILDING WENT UP IN 1939

One teacher said all Lab School students take band, orchestra or chorus in grades 6 through 12.

Don Young, director of the Curriculum Research and Development Group, said the building complex that burned was built in 1939. It was the second building built on the property.

The Lab School is part of the Curriculum Research and Development Group, which is in UH's College of Education. According to its Web site, the school has about 420 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, drawn from a cross-section of Hawai'i's population.

"The College of Education has lost office and classroom space. We now have no place for those classes to go," Young said.

Young didn't know how many square feet were lost, but it's "one of the largest buildings in the complex," and probably had 10 classrooms, a theater, and multi-purpose room.

Some of those classrooms had been converted to office space used by the College of Education.

'IT HAD A GOOD SPIRIT'

The Lab School got out on May 12 — the same schedule as the university, a teacher said. A driver's education course was being taught in the building yesterday.

"Right now, we've got a little bit of breathing room before the Lab School starts up again in August," Young said.

Bill Teter, who teaches English at the high school, also was watching the fire.

"It makes me really sad. I've been here (at the Lab School) for 18 years," Teter said. "I have good friends who teach and work in that building, and all their stuff is gone."

The building was old plantation style.

"Real old, real wooden, creaking when you walk," Teter said. "But it had a good spirit. You could hear kids singing, the orchestra playing, the clanking in the weight room. It was a noisy building in that sense."

The Center for Disability Studies had just moved in there from portables near Wist Hall, he said.

Some of those who watched the fire had attended the school, some decades ago.

Ronald Sakimura, who attended the school in the '50s, said he "just came because I wanted to see the school and it's no longer here. It's an old building. I'm not surprised it would burn."

Celia Khim also attended the school, and said she was in tears when she found out. "We have so many good memories here. This is such a good school."

The school had a big impact on her life, she said. It "taught us to think independently and taught us to help each other. We would stay back and help the other person (when we finished our work). They taught us teamwork. We all band together. That's why the alumni are so close. It's a real special feeling — like we're all relatives. We all grew up together."

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com and Karen Blakeman at kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.