Bids out now for Big Oaks Stadium renovations
Robbinsville – The safety of students remains a top priority for Graham County Schools.
At Feb. 6’s board of education meeting, assistant superintendent Robert Moody provided a promising step toward ensuring consistent safety at both campuses. Thanks to a $300K grant from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, a much-needed overhaul will soon be taking place at both Robbinsville Elementary and Robbinsville Middle/High schools: a new intercom system.
The district has long been considered about “dead spots” at both facilities, where messages from the front office simply would not dispatch through the current antiquated intercom systems in place. Two-way radios also struggle to reach certain areas of the buildings.
No more, Moody said: a radio-based system will soon be in place, which can function without power or internet. Speakers will also be upgraded to patch messages outdoors – and can even reach up to 2,000 feet from the nucleus of the intercom system, which can relay both class-schedule bells and help pass along announcements to those on the perimeter.
“We had a lot of big-ticket items that needed to be replaced,” Moody explained, adding that the elementary school (formerly the high school) was constructed in the 1940s and the middle/high school opened in 1993.
“We shot for the moon: we asked for half a million dollars and we got one of the largest grants in the state.”
Additional upgrades that will come from the grant include the ability to re-key all the interior doors at the schools; exterior door locks will be replaced; two-way radios will be converted from analog to digital; select windows will be tinted, to eliminate the use of blinds; new literature will be made readily available in classrooms on how to handle either physical or mental-health emergencies.
The board approved the necessary quotes unanimously.
Bleachers
For at least the 2024 season, Robbinsville fans will still be sitting on the temporary home-side seating structure to root on the hometown Black Knights.
Facilities director Kevin White gave an update on the progress of the planned facelift to the spectator area under the Big Oaks Stadium press box, which underwent a quick repair over the summer to demolish the 1981-era seating in place and replace with aluminum bleachers.
Bids are already being accepted on correcting several sloping issues around the stadium as a whole, from the home side to the restroom area. White said “extensive grading” would be needed in some areas to fall in compliance with ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) guidelines.
“Our stadium already existed when the act was enacted (July 26, 1990), so we were grandfathered in,” White noted. “Now that we are doing these improvements, we will have to follow those requirements. They are going to be a driving force on what’s going to happen.”
Since the bleachers will remain temporary, White said the plan is to have the 2024 seating (last year’s were leased) installed by graduation in May.