Students return from holiday break to new gym floor, new treadmills
Students return from holiday break to new gym floor, new treadmills
By MARVIN BAKER
EDITOR
New Town High School and Middle School students are starting to see the benefit of millions in federal flood money that was announced last year in April.
Students returned for the spring semester Monday to find a brand new, brightly lit and highly polished gymnasium floor. In addition, there were eight new treadmills and two eliptical machines set up on the stage.
The expenditures were a portion of $6.19 million in U.S. flood money compensation that New Town received after part of its district was flooded when the Garrison Dam was created in the late 1940s.
Thirteen Mountrail County townships, the Parshall School District and the Tioga School District also benefitted to some extent from the $14 million that was doled out by the U.S. government. New Town clearly had the largest slice of the pie.
When the funding was announced, it was to be spent within 24 months and as Supt. Marc Bluestone suggested, was earmarked for certain areas thus it wasn’t as easy to spend that money as most people might think.
Following numerous meetings, it was decided to spend a good portion of the money on infrastructure and part of that is now a tangible benefit in the new floor and the exercise equipment.
Although Bluestone said the varsity and junior varsity basketball teams won’t use the gym, elementary and junior high teams will and will see an immediate improvement in line of sight. Middle school teams will use the floor, but the main tenant will be the New Town High School wrestling team.
