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Vol. 5, No. 9 • February 28, 2011 • www.ShopperNewsNow.com • 10512 Lexington Drive, Suite 500 37932 • 218-WEST (9378)
High hopes for new athletic facility By Joe Rector
T
he new Karns High School opened its doors in 1980. It was furnished with items salvaged from the old school after a part of it burned. For years, sports teams continued to play on the old fields that weren’t located on campus. Eventually, a football stadium, baseball field, softball field and soccer field were completed. One thing that remains absent at the school is an athletic complex. The school has tried to construct a field house in the past, but a variety of reasons, from objections by officials to lack of commitment from parts of the community, have squelched progress. After years of discussing and planning and wrangling, a complex is under serious consideration by the school’s administration and supporters. The community believes it’s about time. Athletic director Jamie Cantrell says that Karns High is the only school in the system that doesn’t have such as facility for athletes. Some people call it a field house, but that implies the structure is for football use only. Cantrell says that one of the keys to making the athletic complex a reality is to ensure that it’s available to multiple teams. Seasonal teams will rotate in the use of the building. In addition to a place for football and other teams to dress and store equipment, plans include offices for coaches, a new and larger weight training facility and even a classroom for wellness classes. Principal Tracy Sands says the athletes at Karns deserve the facility. “Our students put in long hours in a variety of sports. They need a place that is closer to their fields and provides a place to dress other than restrooms in the school.”
Principal Tracy Sands and athletic director Jamie Cantrell go over the drawing of the new athletic complex. Photos by Joe Rector
The complex will be built on the site where tennis courts are now located.
Another positive is that building the complex will free up space in the school now used by football. Two dressing areas will be open for teams, and the overcrowding in the existing weight room in the balcony of the gym will be eased. A couple of meetings have already been held, and others are scheduled. Initially, a committee is trying to raise between $20,000 and $30,000 for engineering, architect drawings and other preliminary work. The sports complex will be To page A-3
Ladies of Charity take good works to new headquarters By Anne Hart Erika Fuhr is one of those remarkable people who can always find something good in even the worst of situations. But that admirable characteristic has been tested mightily over the last year or so. Fuhr has been the major force – they call her “the building guru” – behind the remodeling of a 25 ,000 - squa re foot building soon to be the new home of the Ladies of Charity. It will allow the organization to move its operations from Erika Fuhr cramped, outdated headquarters in two different locations to the new site and eventually expand its charitable programs. After months of effort, work on the new headquarters – the former Royal Beauty Supply building on Baxter Avenue – was nearing completion when a five inch highpressure water pipe froze and burst overnight in January 2010, flooding the entire building.
“Those who love the poor during life will have nothing to fear at the hour of their death.” – St. Vincent de Paul “Everything was ruined,” Fuhr says. “All the ceilings had to be ripped out to the rafters, the walls taken back to the studs, all the flooring pulled up. We lost the furnace, the electrical, everything. It was a nightmare. It cost us $80,000 just to get the water out, but we got right back to work the very next day.” So what good could she possibly find in all that? “We learned a lot was wrong with the building that we hadn’t known about. Now we have been able to take care of those things. It will save us money over the long run.” For example, there were large holes in the walls along roof lines that would have resulted in enormous heating and cooling bills. The building has many large windows, none of which was double-paned or insulated. Much of the structure
is concrete block, and the chinking was crumbling between the blocks. But now, everything that was old and outdated and worn out and not working the way it should has been replaced. “We now have a solid, tight building,” Fuhr says. “It’s almost a new building.” Help has come from many sources. A $33,500 grant from the Timken Foundation, an Ohio manufacturing firm with a facility in Mascot, replaced the large windows with new double-paned ones. A large part of the cost of the building was made possible by a bequest from a former member. In her will, Helen Marx left the Ladies of Charity $384,000. Funding sources for the organization include the United Way, private gifts, donations from the churches and the Angel Tree program. A volunteer writes grants applications. Paid staff is the equivalent of 3 1/2 fulltime positions, and the remaining work is performed by more than 100 volunteers who donated about 25,000 hours last year. Ladies of Charity operates both a thrift shop, where furni-
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ture, clothing and other items are available, and a food pantry, where supplies to prepare more than 3,000 meals a week are provided. In addition, vouchers are available for kerosene for heating in the wintertime, and layettes for newborns are provided to indigent women. Some 33,000 individuals received services from the charity last year. Founded in France in 1617 under the direction of St. Vincent de Paul, Ladies of Charity is the oldest lay organization in the Catholic Church. The local organization
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The new Ladies of Charity headquarters on Baxter Avenue. Photos by Ruth White
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was founded in 1942 by the women of Holy Ghost and Immaculate Conception churches and has long played an active role in helping primarily the working poor. As Fuhr puts it: “Many people hit rough spots in life, and our goal is to get them through that.” The doors to the new facility will open to the public on March 21.There will be a special mass at Holy Ghost Church at 10 a.m. March 18, and afterwards Bishop Richard Stika will cut the ribbon at the new facility. It will be dedicated to Mother Teresa.