Opinion Pg. 2 It’s okay to be a nerd Sports Pg. 4
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Just keep swimming
Feature Pg. 3 Student Publication seniors say final goodbyes
The Booster Redux Pittsburg High School
Pittsburg, KS
1978 E. 4th Street
Vol. 102 Issue 2
P I T T S B U R G
Out with the old, in with the new Gym floor under construction, subject to be done by end of May Words by | John Lee nforeseen acts of vandalism in Pittsburg High School has forced PHS’s primary gymnasium to undergo a repair. School administrator Jeff Staley said that this was all caused by a break-in into the school that took place a couple of weeks ago. “The intruder proceeded to flood the gymnasium with water, and for four hours, they did damage to the gym,” Staley said. Problems continued to arise as time went on. Staley, as well as other administrators, found out that this act of vandalism caused internal damage to the gymnasium floor. “We didn’t think that there was damage to the floor itself in the beginning, but over, time as that water saturated the wood, it caused the wood to start warping,” Staley said. “It progressively started getting worse, where the floor was bubbling and the insurance company deemed it a total loss.” PHS and the insurance company decided to completely replace the gym floor, instead of trying to repair it as a result of
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the damage done. “We tried to fix it at first but [the insurance company] found out that the entire subfloor underneath had standing water,” Staley said. Not only has this whole ordeal become a task for the administration as well as their insurance company, but it has also burdened classes involved in physical education due to a lack of space. “Since we don’t have a main gym, Physical Education classes would be outside instead of in the Mallet,” Staley said. “But when it’s raining, they sit down in the commons and use it as a study hall.” This sudden change in students’ everyday routines brought up questions about what was going on with the gymnasium and why there were certain restrictions on a variety of things. “I had a lot of questions from students. ‘What happened? Why did [the intruder] do that?,’ Lots of those types of questions. But as time went on, most students just knew that we were having to redo the gym floor.” As for how much longer students and staff will have to wait until everything reverts back to normal, we see that the rest of
this semester will be met with an unfinished gym floor. “We are working on repairing of the gym floor quickly,” Staley said. “But right now the goal is to have it finished by the end of May, so for the rest of the school year it’s not going to be usable.” However, as this issue gained more and more public attention, people within the community have been trying to branch out and help PHS as much as possible. “We’ve been very fortunate. The middle school has worked with us; some of the evening activities that use our gym have moved to the middle school. The YMCA has been great to work with, and Pittsburg State University has let us use their facilities,” Staley said. “I appreciate the community effort to get us through this.” But most importantly, throughout this process, Staley recognizes the changes that students and staff are experiencing right now. “I am pleasantly surprised at the lack of complaints,” Staley said. “But I really do appreciate our teachers’ and student’s patience and understanding.”
SAVE THE DATE
Saturday,
Hutchinson Field
May 14
9:00 a.m.