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Dr. Darryl Lee Baynes: The Scientist Who Asked East Wheeling to Dream Bigger

Writer: Terrill Gosa
Terrill Gosa
Sep 24
15 min read

Updated: Oct 3


From nationally recognized science programs to an audacious plan for the former Clay School, Dr. Darryl Lee Baynes built a career around one powerful conviction: children must be able to see themselves in the future.


For years, the old Clay School stood at the corner of 15th and Wood streets as one of East Wheeling’s most imposing landmarks.


Its long brick walls recalled generations of children who passed through its classrooms. Its broken windows, damaged roof and deteriorating masonry told a different story—one of abandonment, deferred maintenance and the painful difficulty of finding a new purpose for a large, aging public building.


But Dr. Darryl Lee Baynes looked at Clay School and saw something else.


He saw laboratories.


He saw an observatory and a greenhouse. He saw computers, aviation, engineering, chemistry and forensic science. He saw teachers receiving professional training and children conducting experiments with their own hands. He imagined community gatherings, after-school activities, athletics and spaces where families could discover that science was not something distant or reserved for someone else.



Baynes wanted to transform Clay School into a place where young people—especially Black children, girls and students historically underrepresented in science—could recognize their own intelligence and potential.


The building would never become the science center he envisioned. Its physical decline ultimately outran the money, partnerships and institutional support available to save it. Clay School was demolished in 2026.


Yet measuring Baynes’s story only by what did not happen at Clay would miss almost everything important about the man.


Long before he attempted to rescue one old school building, Dr. Baynes had already built something remarkable: a national career devoted to making science understandable, exciting and accessible to children who too often had been left outside the laboratory door.


A Young Man Finds His Way Through Science

Darryl Lee Baynes grew up in Philadelphia. Athletics—particularly track—helped provide his path to higher education.


He later explained to students that a track scholarship was his opportunity to attend college. It was an important part of the story he shared with young people because Baynes did not present education as an effortless or predetermined journey. He understood that talent sometimes needs a doorway, and that for many students, especially those from underserved communities, the doorway may appear in an unexpected form.


At the University of Pittsburgh, Baynes studied chemistry. His interests, however, were never confined to the classroom. He earned a pilot’s license and a scuba-diving license, practical expressions of the curiosity that would define his life.


Flight placed him inside the principles of physics. Diving brought him into direct contact with pressure, buoyancy, biology and the environment. To Baynes, science was not merely a collection of facts printed in a textbook. It was the explanation for what people experienced every day.


He continued his education in Wheeling, earning a master’s degree in science and mathematics education from Wheeling Jesuit University. He later received a doctorate in science and mathematics education from Curtin University in Australia.


His academic credentials were substantial, but his greatest gift may have been his ability to make complicated ideas feel immediate and personal.


One of his recurring messages was simple:

“We are all scientists.”

People observe. They wonder. They ask questions. They test explanations against experience. A child watching ice melt, a mechanic diagnosing an engine, a cook measuring ingredients and a basketball player calculating the angle of a shot are all engaged in forms of scientific thinking.


Baynes wanted children to understand that science did not begin with permission from a teacher or admission to a university. It began with curiosity.


A Mission Born in Aviation

In 1992, Baynes and his wife, Linda, established the Minority Aviation Education Association.

The organization’s original focus reflected both his personal love of flight and a conspicuous absence in American aviation. Black students, other minority students and women remained significantly underrepresented in aviation and many related technical fields.


Baynes understood that the problem could not be addressed simply by telling young people that such careers existed. Children needed exposure. They needed instruction, demonstrations, encouragement and visible examples of people who looked like them working in aviation, engineering, mathematics and science.


They needed the opportunity to imagine themselves in the cockpit, laboratory or control room before they could begin planning how to get there.


The Minority Aviation Education Association therefore became more than an organization promoting airplanes. It became a vehicle for introducing young people to the larger universe of science, mathematics and technology.


Its programs brought scientific demonstrations directly to schools and communities. Baynes developed assemblies, summer camps, teacher workshops and interactive presentations. Rather than standing behind a lectern and reciting definitions, he used experiments, movement, humor and audience participation.


He sometimes described the method as “edu-tainment,” but entertainment was never a substitute for substance. The demonstrations were designed to hold a student’s attention long enough for genuine learning to occur.


Science could be rigorous without being remote. It could be serious without being joyless.


From MAEA to Interactive Science Programs

As the organization’s work expanded beyond aviation, its name eventually changed to Interactive Science Programs.



The new name better represented what Baynes and his colleagues had created. Aviation remained important, but it was now one entry point into a much wider scientific world.

Interactive Science Programs offered dozens of educational presentations and activities. Its work included school assemblies, summer programs, curriculum assistance, professional development for teachers and hands-on demonstrations intended to align with national science education standards.


Baynes became known for energetic presentations in which students were not merely spectators. They became participants.


A lesson about temperature, pressure or chemical reactions might begin with an object familiar to every child. From there, Baynes would gradually uncover the science hidden within an ordinary experience. Students could see the reaction, hear the explanation and sometimes take part in the experiment themselves.


This was particularly important to Baynes because he believed children should be taught how to think, not merely trained to produce answers on standardized tests.

Facts mattered. Academic standards mattered. But education was supposed to awaken the mind rather than reduce it to a score.


By the middle of the 2010s, biographical accounts credited Baynes and his programs with reaching nearly one million students, teachers and parents. His work received national media attention and recognition from educational and scientific organizations. He was profiled for his efforts to improve minority participation in science and was recognized among distinguished educators and African American community leaders.


Those achievements did not come from a permanent exhibit inside a major metropolitan museum. They came through persistence, travel and the willingness to carry science directly to the people.


Baynes built a science center wherever he happened to be standing.


Bringing the Message to the Ohio Valley

Baynes’s national work retained strong connections to Wheeling and the Upper Ohio Valley.

He served as a flight director at the Challenger Learning Center at Wheeling Jesuit University and worked as an aviation consultant for a NASA Teacher Resource Center.


These roles placed him at the intersection of space science, classroom instruction and teacher development.


A 1997 newspaper account documented one of his presentations to area students. The program had been arranged with the assistance of Darlene Stradwick, a field-site coordinator for the Health Sciences and Technology Academy, and Dr. Susan Jones.


The article described a presentation filled with hands-on science and energy. Baynes spoke not only about scientific principles but also about personal choices. He encouraged students to avoid drugs and alcohol, to pursue education and to understand that their present decisions could shape their future opportunities.


The message combined scientific curiosity with personal discipline.


Baynes was not simply trying to produce future chemists or engineers. He was attempting to help young people understand that their lives had value, that their minds were capable of difficult work and that education could give structure to their ambitions.


That philosophy explains why Clay School attracted him.


Clay School: A Building Full of Memory

Readers of our earlier posts about Clay School know that it occupied a complicated place in Wheeling’s history.


For generations, it served children in East Wheeling. The neighborhood surrounding it was home to working families, immigrants and a significant portion of Wheeling’s Black population. The building represented the traditional neighborhood-school model: children walking from nearby streets into a large public institution embedded within their community.


Clay School eventually closed in 1996.


The closure left Wheeling with a familiar and difficult question: What should happen to a massive institutional building after its original purpose disappears?


The school reportedly contained more than 20 classrooms as well as a kitchen, auditorium, library, gymnasium and basement. Its footprint extended hundreds of feet along 15th Street.


This was not a small structure that could easily be converted into a residence, office or neighborhood storefront.


An earlier private owner acquired the building after its closure, but a sustainable redevelopment did not follow. Baynes purchased the property approximately eight years later, reportedly for $65,000.


Where others saw an obsolete school, he saw an opportunity to build the permanent home his educational mission had never possessed.



The MAEA Science Center

The plan was ambitious enough to rival the programs of institutions in much larger cities.

A 2003 campaign document called the project the MAEA Science Center and described it as a proposed state-of-the-art community and science facility. At the time, the organization anticipated opening the center in the spring of 2005.


The project’s campaign carried an appropriately hopeful name:

“The Gift of Science Offers Success.”


The center was intended to become the first minority-owned science center of its kind in the United States. Its location in East Wheeling was not incidental. Baynes proposed using science education as an instrument of neighborhood renewal.


At the heart of the plan was what he called the “Extended Classroom”—a place where the boundaries of a traditional school would be widened.


The proposed center included areas devoted to:

  • Biology and chemistry

  • Physics and mathematics

  • Computers and digital technology

  • Aviation and transportation engineering

  • Architecture and design

  • Photography, music and art

  • Water quality and environmental science

  • Radio and television production

  • Forensic science

  • Special effects

  • Distance learning and teleconferencing

  • Electron microscopy

  • Automotive and racing technology


The plans also envisioned a science library, theatre, mobile planetarium, observatory and research greenhouse.


One particularly imaginative component was the proposed Broadbent Boomerang Museum. Other spaces would support athletics, community dining, special events and recreational programming.


This was not simply a museum in which children would walk past glass cases. It was meant to be active—a building where students touched equipment, performed experiments, met working professionals and learned by doing.


More Than a Science Museum

The breadth of the Clay School plan reveals how Baynes understood education.


A child’s academic life could not always be separated neatly from the rest of the child’s circumstances. If a neighborhood lacked safe recreational space, access to computers, transportation, after-school programs or opportunities for family participation, those absences affected education.


The proposed center therefore included much more than laboratories.


Baynes envisioned after-school programming, roller skating, roller hockey and other athletic activities. A community computer laboratory would help address the digital divide, not only for children but also for adults and senior citizens. Kitchen and dining facilities could host community events, meetings and catered gatherings.


Live science theatre would make scientific ideas part of the center’s public programming. The building could accommodate events ranging from small meetings to gatherings of several hundred people.


The proposal projected the creation of approximately 50 to 70 jobs.


In other words, Baynes did not intend to build an attraction that people might visit once a year. He wanted to create a working community institution—one that combined education, recreation, technology, employment and neighborhood life.


A Network of Ohio Valley Science

The MAEA Science Center was also intended to complement existing educational resources throughout the region.


The campaign materials identified possible connections with the Challenger Learning Center and NASA Educator Resource Center at Wheeling Jesuit University, the SMART Center at West Liberty, Oglebay’s Schrader Environmental Education Center, the Good Zoo and Benedum Planetarium, and other regional programs.


One traveling exhibit, “The Right Stuff,” was described as a collaboration involving NASA, Wheeling Jesuit University and MAEA.


This regional approach was one of the most compelling elements of Baynes’s vision. He was not attempting to replace other organizations. He wanted Clay School to become another major point in a network of scientific learning.


The old neighborhood school would become a gateway.


A child from East Wheeling might begin with an experiment at Clay, continue with a simulated space mission at the Challenger Learning Center, study wildlife at Oglebay and eventually pursue higher education in science or engineering.


For a young person who had never imagined such a future, the distance between Wood Street and outer space might suddenly feel a little shorter.


The Scale of the Dream

The project’s financial goals demonstrate that Baynes understood the size of the challenge.


The campaign projected approximately:

  • $6 million for construction and rehabilitation

  • $4 million for laboratory and program development

  • $5 million for an institutional endowment


The total vision was valued at approximately $15 million. The campaign document identified existing funds and assets of about $2.5 million and set a fundraising goal of approximately $12.5 million.


These figures matter because they show that the Clay School proposal was not merely an idea casually mentioned in an interview. Baynes and his organization developed program areas, objectives, projected employment, partnership possibilities and a capital campaign.

The dream had a name, a mission and a budget.


But it did not have enough money.


When Vision Meets an Aging Building

Saving a building as large and deteriorated as Clay School required more than enthusiasm.


The structure needed extensive roof work, masonry stabilization, environmental remediation and accessibility improvements. Its size, once an advantage for a busy public school, became an enormous financial liability.


By 2012, reported estimates suggested that a new roof alone could cost more than $500,000. Stabilizing portions of the masonry could require additional six-figure expenditures. Renovating only the first floor was estimated at approximately $1.5 million.


Even demolition was expected to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.


Baynes continued pursuing grants, but the necessary funding did not materialize.


The delay created a punishing cycle. Without major investment, the building continued to deteriorate. As the deterioration worsened, the cost of rehabilitation increased. Each passing winter made the original dream more difficult to achieve.


There were also requirements that could not be wished away. A public facility had to meet modern standards for accessibility and safety. Mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems would require extensive work. Water entered through the roof and basement. Windows were broken. Portions of the exterior became hazardous.


The great irony was that the building’s classrooms made it seem perfect for education, while the condition of those same classrooms made educational reuse increasingly unattainable.


An Attempt to Preserve the Mission

By late 2012, Baynes was exploring a smaller alternative.


He asked the City of Wheeling to consider providing a former industrial property associated with Imperial Pools. He hoped it might serve as a more manageable location for science instruction and storage.


That request revealed something essential about his motivation.


Baynes was not simply attached to owning an old school building. He was attached to the mission. If the Clay School plan could not be realized, he was willing to consider another location and a smaller model.


He also emphasized his desire to remain in East Wheeling.


That commitment mattered. Redevelopment proposals are often designed for a neighborhood but conceived elsewhere. Baynes wanted the scientific and educational opportunity physically located among the children and families it was intended to serve.


The proposed change of location did not produce the permanent center he hoped to establish. Clay School remained standing, and its condition continued to decline.


“Darryl Has Heart”

By 2013, the former school was placed on the market.


A 2016 Weelunk article captured both the lingering dream and the grim condition of the property. Realtor Missy Ashmore summarized the human dimension of the story in three words:

“Darryl has heart.”

That observation may be the most concise description of the entire Clay School endeavor.


The plan was unquestionably ambitious. In retrospect, it may have been larger than any individual or small nonprofit could reasonably carry without significant government, philanthropic and institutional backing.


But the ambition was not rooted in personal luxury. Baynes wanted to create laboratories for children. He wanted to train teachers, employ local residents, improve a neighborhood and introduce young people to careers from which minorities and women had historically been excluded.


His problem was not an absence of imagination.


It was that imagination alone could not replace a roof, stabilize masonry or raise a multimillion-dollar endowment.


By 2016, city officials were increasingly concerned about safety, maintenance and the future of the building. The sidewalk beside the school had been closed. Windows were broken, the façade was visibly compromised and officials questioned whether rehabilitation remained economically realistic.


These concerns were legitimate. The residents of East Wheeling had to live beside the deteriorating structure. Whatever its potential symbolic value, the building had become a physical burden on the neighborhood.


A complete account of Clay School must hold both truths at once: Baynes’s vision was generous and transformative, and the building’s prolonged deterioration had real consequences for the surrounding community.


The End of Clay School

The City of Wheeling eventually acquired the property in 2021.


Public discussion continued over whether any feasible reuse remained. Consultants evaluated the building, community surveys were conducted and potential redevelopment options were considered. The cost of rehabilitation, however, proved overwhelming.

By late 2024, the city had elected to pursue demolition and consider a new indoor recreational facility for the site.



Asbestos abatement began in 2025. In March 2026, Wheeling City Council approved a demolition contract, and the walls of the old school began coming down the following month.


By June, Clay School was gone.


In August 2026, city officials reported that demolition and site clearance had been completed. The property was vacant, while hopes remained for obtaining funding for a future indoor recreation center.


There is a bittersweet parallel in that possibility.


Baynes had imagined Clay as a combination of education, science, recreation and community life. The building itself could not be saved, and the city’s future plans are not the same as his MAEA Science Center proposal. Still, the continuing desire to create a community-centered facility on that corner echoes part of what he recognized years earlier: East Wheeling deserves meaningful investment and a place built around the needs and possibilities of its young people.


Was the Clay School Dream a Failure?

If success is defined only as opening the doors of the MAEA Science Center, then the project did not succeed.


The laboratories were never installed. The observatory was never constructed. The greenhouse did not rise above the old school. The projected jobs were not created there, and children never entered the building for the promised Extended Classroom.


But historical judgment should be broader than a construction ledger.


Baynes recognized several truths well ahead of much of the public conversation around education.


He understood that representation matters. Children need to encounter scientists, pilots, engineers and educators whose lives make achievement feel possible.


He understood that hands-on learning can reach students who have become disconnected from conventional instruction.


He understood that science education, workforce development, recreation and neighborhood revitalization are not isolated concerns. They are parts of the same community ecosystem.


He understood the digital divide before home internet access became nearly indispensable to education.


And he understood that East Wheeling should not merely be discussed as a place in need. It should be treated as a place of potential.


The Clay School project did not create those ideas. But it brought them together in one remarkably ambitious plan.


The Success That Did Occur

It would be unfair to allow the fate of one building to overshadow Baynes’s larger record.


Through MAEA and Interactive Science Programs, he carried science education to students across the country. His programs reached schools and communities that lacked the resources of major science museums. He trained and encouraged teachers. He developed interactive presentations and created opportunities for children to experience science directly.


By published accounts, his work eventually touched nearly one million students, teachers and parents.


That is not a theoretical legacy.


Somewhere, a student saw one of Baynes’s demonstrations and began asking different questions. Somewhere, a teacher returned to the classroom with a better way to explain a difficult idea. Somewhere, a child who had never seen a Black scientist leading the room saw Dr. Darryl Lee Baynes and quietly expanded the boundaries of what seemed possible.

Buildings matter. Institutions matter. Permanent spaces can anchor a mission for generations.


But education also happens in encounters—sometimes in a gymnasium, auditorium or temporary classroom when a gifted teacher captures a child’s attention and directs it toward the universe.


Baynes created those encounters again and again.


A Dream That Outlived the Building

Today, the corner of 15th and Wood streets no longer contains Clay School.


The physical building that inspired Baynes’s great Wheeling proposal has passed into history. For those who attended the school, lived beside it or hoped to see it restored, its disappearance carries genuine sadness.


Yet the most important part of Baynes’s dream was never the brick.


It was the belief that children in East Wheeling were entitled to the same sense of wonder, the same advanced equipment, the same inspiring teachers and the same opportunity to imagine themselves in scientific careers as children anywhere else.


It was the belief that a predominantly Black and working-class neighborhood could become a center of innovation.


It was the belief that an old school, seemingly discarded by one generation, could be transformed into a place where the next generation learned to fly.


The building is gone. The question Baynes placed before Wheeling remains:

What would happen if we invested in children’s curiosity with the same seriousness that we invest in roads, buildings and institutions?


Perhaps the final chapter of the Clay School story has not yet been written. A future community facility could still reflect some of the principles Baynes championed—education, recreation, technology, mentorship and opportunity—whether or not it bears the name of his original project.


Dr. Darryl Lee Baynes dreamed on a scale large enough to expose the distance between what a community possessed and what its children deserved.


His science center was never completed.


His mission, however, was never confined to Clay School. It lived in every demonstration, every classroom, every teacher he encouraged and every young person he invited to see science—and themselves—differently.


That is not an unfulfilled life.


It is an unfinished invitation.



-T


Sources and Further Reading

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