CC, CISD complete $680k in projects

School and college facilities in Clarendon are completing about $680,000 worth of summer improvements as students prepare to return for classes next week.

Clarendon College is wrapping up the most ambitious agenda with most work centered in residence halls that are about 40 years old. Upgrades to Vaughan, Phelan, and Knorpp halls are running about $400,000 and are expected to be completed by next week.

All three dorms received new doors on each room at a cost of about $30,000, and the college also renovated 22 bathrooms in Knorpp Hall with new showers at a cost of $89,000.

Sixty rooms in Vaughan and Phelan halls received new cabinets, dressers, and bookshelves for $150,000, and one-third of mattresses on the campus have been replaced for $10,000.

In addition, Vaughan Hall has been re-plumbed and had new plumbing fixtures added at a cost of $65,000; and new bathroom petitions and sinks have been installed in Phelan and Vaughan and curtains have been added to communal showers in those dorms also.

The college has also spent $30,000 painting in the dorms, and elsewhere around campus CC has purchased a new refrigerator/freezer in the cafeteria and restriped parking lots and updated paint on curbs and cross walks.

CC President Phil Shirley said students living on-campus are in for a treat when they arrive next week.

“I am so excited,” Shirley said. “We’ve done a lot of work, and both Vaughan and Phelan especially look wonderful.”

At Clarendon ISD, public school officials are finishing up $280,000 worth of improvements that included $75,000 to completely re-plumb and modernize 45-year-old bathrooms in the junior high and elementary buildings. The work included all new, self-flushing toilets, handicapped accessibility, new partitions, and new sinks. A three-inch mud-bed securing the old floor tile was busted out and replaced, and galvanized pipes were replaced with copper.

“Most of our older waterlines have been replaced now,” said Superintendent Monty Hysinger. “We still have some galvanized going to water fountains, but we’ll replace those on our own.”

The school spent $40,000 to repaint the Bronco and Colt gymnasiums and the Functional Living Center as well as handrails around the campus.

The biggest project was a $165,000 replacement of aging heating and cooling systems for the high school, band hall, and agriculture buildings. The project only cost the school $65,000 thanks to a $100,000 SECO energy grant administered through the state.

“These units were 23 years old, and the new ones will be much more efficient,” Hysinger said.

For next year the school will be looking at the district’s latest addition, the E-Wing on the west end of the elementary building that is now 15 years old and showing signs of settling cracks.

“The projects this year were all things we felt like we needed to do,” Hysinger said. “You’re never through repairing, but our board has been proactive and taken baby steps to stay after things so we keep them looking good.”