The much anticipated ribbon cutting representing the completion of the Frankfort High School renovation project, took place Tuesday night in front of the main entrance. Between 75 and 100 individuals gathered, including city, school officials and administrators, Frankfort High School students and all those who had a hand in the project.
The evening began with a 30-minute dedicatory program before the doors were opened for an open house.
“It’s been six, seven years and tonight is all worth it,” said Community Schools of Frankfort Superintendent Don DeWeese. “It’s all worth it to see and listen to the community go through the building and receive the positive feedback we’ve received.”
DeWeese, along with School Board President Sandra Miller and Frankfort High School Principal Steve Edwards, spoke to the crowd as did two guest speakers, Jim Siegfried and Tom Ransom. Two students, junior Isaac Hunter and senior Anghy Ramos also addressed the crowd saying how special the ‘new’ Frankfort High School is and will be for many generations to come.
(SEE PICTURES OF COMPLETED PROJECT BELOW)
The night was special for so many reasons. However, the evening was probably the most special for Ransom, a 1963 Frankfort High School graduate.
“It’s wonderful to come back into this school building,” said Ransom. “In 1963, it was the ultimate as far as schools were concerned in this area. To see what they’ve done with the remodel and the changes to make this a better operation is wonderful.”
Ransom added there a couple of other big differences from then until now.
“Our class was the first to graduate from here,” said Ransom. “We did not have a swimming pool or a gymnasium finished. So, we were using the old facility downtown which was Howard Hall. To add those things to the new school at the time made a complete facility out of this area.”
Ransom also commended the community for “buying into the project” and the school district for keeping the project under budget.
“This is great for the city of Frankfort,” he said.
DeWeese said the renovation is 98 percent complete with just a few odds and ends remaining.
“We are getting them organized so we can send them to our contractor because they want to come and spend two or three days and get the punch list taken care of,” said DeWeese. “When we start school in August, we should be completely finished and ready to start school.”
DeWeese added everything worked out great to keep the $30 million project under control.
“Because our bids came back low, we ended up probably getting $34-$35 million dollars worth of work for the price tag of $30 million,” said DeWeese. “We’re really fortunate and our timing was very good. The building and the students speak for themselves.”
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