Robbinsville – Following the qualification process, the Graham County Board of Education selected the architect that will be responsible for designing the new Robbinsville Elementary School.
At Tuesday’s board meeting, assistant superintendent/facilities director David Matheson said that six architectural firms threw their names in the hat, with the list narrowed down to three. The finalists were interviewed last week.
Following closed session, the board approved Knoxville, Tenn.-based Cove Architecture as the firm to design the school.
The district secured 6.04 acres of property for $230,000 to build the new school adjacent to the Robbinsville High School baseball field in November. The new campus will likely be a two-story structure and built on the backing of a $42 million grant.
Graham County was 1-of-7 school districts across North Carolina to be awarded a total of $360 million in lottery-funded grants, under the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s Needs-Based Public School Capital Fund – which was launched in 2017 by the General Assembly.
Other systems afforded the funds were Edgecombe ($62 million); Hyde ($36,574,482); Jackson ($52 million); Martin ($62 million); Sampson ($62 million); and Swain ($52 million) counties. The department of public instruction received 122 applications totaling $1.78 billion in requested funding.
‘Big shoes to fill’
The brief meeting included an extended moment of recognition for Ned Long, an Indian Education teacher who has announced his retirement.
Long was presented with a certificate of appreciation for his work in Graham County over the years, which has been split between the district and the Youth Development Center, which is now part of the county school system and is known as The Academy.
“I appreciate the whole school system,” Long said. “All the administrators and staff, and everyone have been really helpful every time I’ve ever needed anything.”