VIDEO: After a Buncombe County landmark was destroyed by fire last month, some said a key part of their life went up in flames, too. For former students, It's painful to look at the blackened remnants of French Broad Elementary School, which was built in Alexander in 1924. "It floored me. It affected me worse than I ever thought it would," former student Tommy Davis said. "And I thought it was the end of a lot of things." In the wake of the destruction that left them heartbroken, some felt the need to reconnect. Davis and a small group of classmates recently reunited at 12 Bones South in Arden. Their sense of finality about the school that went up in flames lead to a sense of nostalgia. "Come here, big guy," John Wayne Goforth, of Seattle, said, hugging Davis. They were classmates at French Broad in the 1960s.