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By Ben McCarty
News staff writer
June 20, 2009
Good
news and bad new for Hood River Valley sports fans. Those
bleachers you have spent the last 40 years molding to a perfect
sitting spot, or stomping on with your feet will not have the
same feel next season.
That’s
because they will be brand-new.
The
bleachers in the main gym were installed in 1970. The bleachers
in the upper gym were installed around the same time period but
were used in another facility long before that.
This
week the old bleachers all came out. For the next month Vannet
Court and the upper gym will be a bleacher-free zone while the
walls are painted and the gym floors are resurfaced.
HRV
Athletic Director Keith Bassham said new bleachers will be put
in starting in August and that the project should be done by the
start of the school year.
“It’s
definitely going to be a new look,” Bassham said. “(The old
bleachers) have done their tour of duty.”
Funds
for the removal and installation come from the construction bond
measure passed two years ago by Hood River County voters.
According to Randall Johnston, facilities manager for the school
district, the cost for the bleacher removal will be $5,885,
purchase and installation of the new bleachers is $149,207, and
the purchase and installation of new basketball backboards costs
$15,369.
The new
backboards will swing up to the ceiling. The current set swings
sideways and would run into the new, taller, bleachers. While
they are being replaced, that does not mean the old bleachers
will go to waste.
“Everything will be recycled or reused,” said Larry Jensen of
Northwest School Equipment in Eugene, the company that is
handling the removal of the bleachers. “Nothing goes to the
landfill.”
The
replacement of the upper bleachers will be especially useful.
The metal in several of the supports had become warped after
years of use, and others spots had become weak after being
welded several times. They also had to be pulled out by hand by
the janitorial staf; a process that took hours.
The gyms
should be clean for a youth basketball camp at the school next
week, and Bassham said the only sport that may be affected by
the installation of new bleachers would be volleyball; but he
believes it should be done by the start of the season.
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