BY KYLE LOVERN
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
WILLIAMSON — What school administrators, coaches and fans have wanted to see at Tug Valley High School’s gymnasium will come to fruition.
The basketball and volleyball gym, also used for Physical Education classes, will be getting all-new bleachers installed in the very near future.
The Mingo County Board of Education approved the improvement during its Jan. 17 regular meeting. The topic had come up in a previous meeting.
County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Johnny Branch said the reason for the upgrade was because the bleachers currently seating the public at the school’s sporting events are the same ones used for fan seating when TVHS was built in the early 1980s.
Because of their age (40-plus years), Branch said the gym’s bleachers have become outdated and unsafe for public use and needed replaced.
“The bleachers are very old and they have fallen into greater disrepair … they do not pull out correctly, people have fallen, we’re not ADA compliant, so something definitely has got to be done about them,” Branch said.
The newly renovated bleachers will be better. Dr. Branch said the replacement bleachers being considered include a section of approximately 150 stadium-styled, folding seats that would be situated behind the scorer’s table. Those seats would come at an additional cost of about $33,000 and, if included in the renovation project, would be used for reserved seating.
The new seating will bring the school into ADA compliance and will ensure the public’s safety. However, Branch said a slight downside to the proposed new bleachers would be a reduction in the overall seating capacity of the gym.
Mingo County School’s maintenance director, William Hensley, said the gym’s current seating number is around 1,485. By becoming ADA compliant, coupled with all the other added accessibility features – including adequate wheelchair accessibility – he said the gym’s new seating capacity would be reduced to around 1,275 people.
Hensley said the purchase of the new bleachers would go through cooperative purchasing and would not require the project to be bid out to additional companies. He said the current bid already on the table is valid for 20 days.
Board member Amy Hannah, who has supported the new seating renovation at TVHS, said the total cost of the project without the stadium chairs comes in at $292,168 – and $325,581 with the additional upgrade.
Board member James Ed Baisden motioned to approve the $325,581 needed to complete the project. The BOE approved an additional $25,000 to cover any contingency expenses that might be added to the estimated total in the future.
The other BOE members are Machelle McCormick, Tom Slone and John W. Preece.