The board bought the 80 acre parcel back in 2006 for $2,200,000.00 with the intent to build a school there at some future date. Ultimately, no school was ever considered for the sight.

Several weeks ago, the board voted to put the land up for sale, again. This time they put it up on an online auction with a $1,400,000.00 reserve price. No one knew if it would even bring the reserve. But boy did it.

The auction was on line for a couple weeks but the real action didn't begin till about the last thirty minutes of the auction which would end at noon last Thursday. Two anonymous bidders got into what amounts to a bidding war. When it was all said and done, the winning bidder got the property for $25,250.00 per acre or $2,020,000.00.

After all these years, the board only lost about $180,000.00 on the deal. While that may seem like a lot, in the past when the property had been listed for sale, it didn't bring a million dollars. No one on the current board or any of the administrators were involved in the 2006 purchase.

Currently, the board of education, is in a pretty tight financial position. The money from the sale of the property should go a long way in helping relieve that.

The mystery is, who bought the property and what will the new owner do with it. Residential, commercial, industrial, another housing project, who knows. The property is already in the Lenoir City limits.