Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

School Searching For Land; Hires Abstract Company

Gurdon's School Board will soon be hiring an abstract company to determine if they own an acre and which acre exactly it would be.

At the September 19 meeting, Jesse Runyan, school board president, reported to Bobby Smithson, superintendent, and the members of the school board he had found the legal descriptions of the Crossroad' acre of land to be faulty at best.

"It seems suspicious to me," Runyan said.

Board member, Tommy Overby said, "The land may have reverted back to the original landowner when the school ceased to be, it needs to be researched out."

Smithson said, "It's time to put this thing to rest, we've been on it for six months now."

From information provided, Smithson expressed to the board, "We received $25,000 for the old high school property and $29,500 from the insurance company for the fire at the old home economics building. I will recommend that we contribute $50,000 to the auditorium building fund. We'll, of course, be funding more than this in the future to the project."

Funds will be placed in an account in the First State Bank of Gurdon.

The building fund hopes to raise $2 million dollars for construction of a possibly 2,000 seat fine arts auditorium with administration offices. Heading the initiative is local humanitarian, Anita Cabe with an appointed committee under former Henderson State University administration member, John Hall.

The district will be purchasing bleachers for girls' softball field. Smithson said, "I will recommend we purchase two of the five row bleachers quoted at $3,586 each."

The purchase from Interstate School Supply should seat approximately 200 people.

The board chose from two bids for a new bus. According to Smithson, "In order to maintain our fleet we need to purchase a bus each year." The board motioned to approve the bid of $48,009 for a Freightliner from Merl's Bus Sales of Van Buren.

Smithson offered data to the board reflecting the mileage, age, model, make and purpose of the entire bus fleet. Out of the 15 vehicles, five of the route buses have more than 100,000 miles and only one of these runs gasoline.

Praise went to a district employee. Smithson said, "I think Jimmy does an excellent job." He was describing the work put in on the buses by bus manager, Jimmy Martin.

The board was encouraged to attend the annual Arkansas School Board Association region meeting to be held at the Center Point High School auditorium on Monday, Oct. 9 at 6:30 p.m.

The ASBA ask Smithson to notify them of the district board members to attend. A majority of the school board commented on their efforts to attend barring prior commitments.

Currently, according to Smithson, the backstop is installed, work is being done on the dugouts and fence work with used fencing from the old football field is next on the list.

The baseball field will also be costly. According to Smithson, the lights and light poles will be expensive and the funds will need planned out in next year's budget.

Smithson also expressed, in a sketched design, the double gate in the baseball fence will allow for it's use as a second football field.

The cost estimate for a scoreboard for the softball field will cost $2,071, plus sales tax. Optional items will of course increase the expense, but Smithson indicated he will discuss sponsorships with area businesses to aid in the cost.

Bonita Grayson was hired by the school board upon the recommendation of GPS principal, Rita Roe with aid from, title 1 teacher, Bonnie Ross. The part-time position Grayson will fill will be funded through a grant. Grayson will be a parent/teacher coordinator.

The school has made the final payment on the construction of the track to Statewide Construction. The final amount of $21,000 was issued out in August.