From painting and paving and roofing to the installation of new athletic fields, HVAC systems, classrooms, and kitchens, administrators and maintenance personnel at Brooke County Schools have been very busy for the past several years.
That’s when the district hired Maintenance Foreman Steve Mitchell, and he and Superintendent Dr. Jeff Crook have been working on a long and ambitious list of upgrades and renovations needed in and around Brooke County’s seven public school buildings.
“I don’t want to knock anyone, but when I came here to Brooke County Schools in 2019, there were a lot of projects that needed to be done,” Mitchell said. “Other than that, the board and our administration definitely have a different vision than the people before them. The board and our superintendent know how important facilities are to the kids and the parents, and we’ve been busy.
“We started with the basic stuff like the roofs on several buildings,” he said. “And think about this – Brooke High School is 9 acres under roof. It’s a big building, and that’s a lot of roof.”
Mitchell and his staff not only concentrate on the high school, but also on Wellsburg and Hooverson primary schools, Franklin Intermediate and Jefferson Intermediate, Brooke Middle School, the Bruin Bridge, and the Central Office in Wellsburg. More than 220 projects have been completed to date, and there’s much more to come, Mitchell revealed last week on the “Novotney Now” radio program on River Talk 100.1/100.9 FM.
“We maintain eight different buildings in all, and then we have athletic facilities we take care of, too,” Mitchell explained. “As far as what’s outside, there’s the football, baseball, and softball fields, and we have our track and field area as well as our band field.
“So, yes, we cut a lot of grass, but we also now have our turf fields that have been added because of the weather we have here in the region,” he said. “The kids love the new fields because they’re consistent, and if they have a game scheduled, they know they’re going to play unless we have a really, really bad storm.”
The times, they sure are a-changing, especially when it comes to facilities involving the school district’s athletic fields.
“We played our football games at Wellsburg Stadium down by the old Wellsburg High School on the river, and the area where our fields are now was all woods,” Mitchell recalled. “They started developing the land at the high school pretty much as soon as I graduated, and our facilities were considered to be very good compared to other schools.
“There are a lot of reasons why our board approved the turf fields now, and one of the biggest is safety because of the surface and the drainage. Plus, the artificial surfaces are easier for us to maintain,” he explained. “The kids love the surfaces, and they love knowing that if they have a softball or a baseball game on the home school, they’re most likely going to play when they’re supposed to play.”
Like the Pros
It’s no secret that young athletes emulate their heroes in as many ways as possible, and they also dream about competing in state-of-the-art facilities with similar surfaces.
Dr. Crook knows it to be true – so do Deputy Superintendent Corey Murphy and Brooke High Principal Eric James – and that’s because they were once the same kind of “going pro” dreamers.
“And that’s one of the big reasons why our vision with these improvements to our facilities has everything to do with making our schools better all the time. We want our kids to want to come to our schools and to want to participate in sports or another extracurricular activity,” the superintendent said. “We want them to be proud of their school, and that’s what’s happening here in Brooke County. We’re seeing that pride in our community, too.
“You want your facilities to be top-notch because of open enrollment and the Hope Scholarship program we now have in West Virginia, but the grand plan – the reasons why we’re doing what we’re doing with our facilities – is for the kids we have here now,” Crook said. “We also believe that along with the best facilities in the Northern Panhandle, we also have the best teachers, coaches and staff members.”
The installations of new surfaces for the high school’s football, baseball, and softball fields were completed by FieldTurf out of Georgia, and they all involved interesting processes, according to Mitchell.
“The company comes in and the first thing they do is take 13 inches of dirt off the top,” the maintenance foreman said. “That’s when they put the drainage in, and everything has to be approved by the environmental folks with the state of West Virginia just make sure the run-off is going where it’s supposed to go.
“After that, everything is stabilized with concrete, and then on top of that goes the stone, and then the turf,” Mitchell reported. “After the new surface is down, that’s when the final touches are made, logos are added, and then we have a new field for our kids. It’s really an amazing process to watch, and now the kids know they’re going to be able to play when they’re supposed to play.”
No more puddles or muddy baselines or barren 50-yard lines, and the all-purpose surfaces are more cost-effective in the long run.
“Not only are the artificial surfaces more consistent as far as scheduling goes, but we’re also saving a lot of money when it comes to seeding, fertilizing, and watering,” Crook said. “Plus, we really don’t have the need for tarping the field anymore when bad weather is in our area. We all know we get some pretty good storms in this area, too.
“But as long as there’s not a bunch of lightning, our kids can play,” he added. “That means there aren’t the cancellations like there used to be. I remember when I was a kid and when we had a game scheduled, we’d be all excited. But then, if it got canceled, I just remember that being such a letdown for the kids.
“But no more. Not in Brooke County.”
