Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

New Stadium Discussed

Gurdon's School Board was given plenty to think about at its regular monthly meeting, Tuesday, Jan. 20.

Gurdon Superintendent Bobby Smithson asked the board not to extend his contract any further. He has one year remaining on his current contract.

He did ask to be allowed to remain as superintendent until all construction projects are completed.

Smithson said the Gurdon Middle School project should be completed, if all goes well, for the 1998-99 school year.

Recent bad weather has hampered work on the facility, but the slab has been poured, and steel is being put up.

Once the steel skeleton is in place, he said, the masonry work can begin.

School employees have worked to build the cabinets for the rooms, with all cabinets being completed. He said they still need to be stained and have the hardware put on (hinges, handles, etc.), but this would be done when they are put in the new rooms.

With the GMS project winging its way toward completion, Smithson's attention turned to the need for a new football field. He said a new stadium could be built for $500,000.

The board was informed it cost the Center Point district $800,000 to construct a new complex for football, but the area its stadium was built on was rock and had to be blasted.

The proposed location for a new field at Gurdon High School, he said, is on a softer surface, so the dirt work should be easier. And, he added, with the district employees doing as much work as possible, the job can be done for less.

Smithson said the district could ask for a 2 mill tax increase to raise the money, but added the field can possibly be built without doing this.

If post-dated warrants are issued, he said, the money can be raised. Second lien bonds are no longer an option. The district could also borrow from the revolving loan program to get part of the funds needed.

Repaying the warrants over an 8-year period would see the district with payments of $40,000 per year, he said. This, though, shouldn't be a problem once the district gets through the 1998-99 school year and has the new GMS paid off. The district would have the money available for the warrants.

Interest on the warrants would also be about $5,000 cheaper than the interest on a loan, he said. Warrant interest to be repaid would be about $65,000, while the revolving loan program would charge the district $70,000 in interest on a $250,000 loan.

Smithson said if local tax assessments continue to rise, and they should through 1999, the district could fund $125,000 from its operating fund. This, he informed the board, would give the district enough to finish up the $500,000 for the stadium.

The new stadium, he said, would have aluminum bleachers to seat the fans, and could have a track as well.

However, there is a problem in this formula. Everything depends on student population remaining constant or going up. Smithson told the board the district has lost 30 students so far, with each student being worth $4,000 in financial aid from the state.

Should the district pick up the students it lost, or not lose any more, there should be no problems, he said, and a tax increase would not be necessary.

A total of 10 students, he said, were lost to home schooling. The rest either dropped out or moved from the district.

Past members of the GHS band will have something to look forward to as well. The board agreed to institute a Music Wall of Fame by the band room.

Criteria to be inducted will be stringent, according to Alan Wimberly, band director at GHS. He said the committee decided this should be a prestigious honor for those who are so named. Because of this, only one or two people will be honored annually.

The recipient, he said, need not be a member of the band, but could be a former band director with at least five years of service to Gurdon, or a person who has served in the capacity of a band booster or made contributions to the band program with their time or gifts.

Students nominated must be graduates of GHS and have been members of the band for at least two years. At least 10 years must have passed since they graduated from GHS before they can be nominated.

Wimberly said all recipients must be well respected people of good character.

Those so named to the Band Wall of Fame will be inducted during the school's annual Band Banquet, and given the opportunity to speak.

Wimberly said he and Sandra Hitt, the director of the Gurdon Choir Program, agreed the band and choir should be separate on the Wall of Fame at this time. This, he said, is because the choir program has not been around very long at GHS.

"We want this to be a prestigious award," Wimberly told the board, "and not just anyone will be selected."

Smithson has spoken with State Rep. Percy Malone about getting amber warning lights posted around GHS. He said the problem of speeding in the school zone has not lessened any.

When the Arkansas State Police have been contacted, he said, they send an officer to patrol the area. Smithson said the officer generally writes several tickets for speeding in a school zone.

The problem, though, is the ASP doesn't have the manpower to post an officer at the school daily. Trucks, Smithson said, fly through the zone.

Malone will be discussing this issue with John Lipton, director of the Arkansas Highway Commission.

Smithson also updated the board on the status of the district's suit against the contractor who installed the parking lot at GHS. The suit, he said, has been amended to include the site contractor, BB&B Construction of Hot Springs, as a co- defendant.

This, he said, is because BB&B didn't meet the specifications of having 12 inches of gravel for the base of the lot.

The problem with the lot, Smithson said, are three-fold. First, the base didn't have the 12 inches of gravel it was supposed to have. Then, two inches of asphalt was not placed uniformly on the lot. This was followed by the asphalt being installed cold, after having sat all day after being hauled to the site.

"I think our position's strong," he said, "but I'm not sure what we'll recover."

The lot cannot be repaired by springtime because of the weather, he said, but this could be a good thing for the district in the long run. This is because the base will be allowed to sit and compact longer and should be stronger when it is finally asphalted.

The board was also informed about what the teachers are doing to help students improve their Stanford 9 test scores.

Grades at Gurdon Primary School were compared on grade levels, as well as being checked against students who were in the first grade last year and those same ones in the second grade this year.

According to Jerry Childres, all areas showed improvement except spel