‘Rich Tradition’
Reading students work to preserve school gymnasium’s history
By Bobbi Mlynar (Contact)
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Photo by David Doemland
Reading School students Lane Fuller, 13, left, Allison Siler, 13, and Sierra Taylor, 14, paint Wednesday pennants of the schools in their league.
READING
Students at Reading are giving their school’s gymnasium a facelift. Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students in J.T. Crawford’s computer class chose the gym makeover as a project after researching their options.
The project has turned into a labor of love and a lesson in life.
“Reading gym is kind of a blast from the past. We’re just kind of trying to preserve it,” Crawford said. “...It’s straight out of ‘Hoosiers.’ Next to White Auditorium, it’s one of the most prized gyms in the area. It seats over 600 people.”
The gym was built in 1951, he said, and is one of the last of the old-fashioned gymnasiums, complete with theater-type seating and a raised buffer zone between the basketball court and the spectators.
Photo by David Doemland
Payton DeLong, 13, pays close attention as he adds some black paint onto a sign showing the years Reading School were champions in various sports.
“It’s a wonderful place to coach,” he said. “There’s not a bad seat in the place. It’s just wonderful.”
The 21 students involved were divided into teams, with a leader and a specific mission for each team. One team made a sign to indicate the league championships of Reading High School. Another group was assigned to make a sign showing league championships of Reading Grade School, and a third team made a sign showing academic achievements of Reading Grade School.
All of the signs are 6 feet by 8 feet and are made of wood. Students researched, designed, drew and hand-painted all of the signs.
The fourth group is hand-painting 2 feet by 2 feet pennants to represent Lyon County League teams, each containing a school’s name and mascot.
“We tried to incorporate art and history and research kind of into one thing, and design it on the computer,” Crawford said.
Photo by David Doemland
A Reading Grade School student works on the detail of a sign Wednesday morning recognizing League Scholorship Test Champions.
The project is expected to be completed by the end of this month.
“It’s kind of like a real-life situation where they had a boss to be accountable to,” Crawford said. “The team leaders had to keep everybody working, and they researched the history of the school and the championships that they won. A lot of people from the community brought in yearbooks and old pictures. It was a really neat thing.”
The school’s PTO became involved and donated paint and supplies for the project.
The students’ efforts to improve the gym were timely, he said.
During his 17 years at the school, the banners have not been changed and nothing is in place to show the accomplishments of the current K-8 school and the former Reading High School, which closed in 1981.
“People who know sports know that Reading was a perennial powerhouse in basketball,” Crawford said. “They still hold the record for Lyon County League victories.”
Reading High played in 20 Lyon County League finals and won 10, he said.
The school brought home so many athletic trophies, in fact, that there was only room enough to display the first-place trophies. Reading had won many more. The youngsters’ project will reflect that accomplishment and more.
A carpenter was hired to build shelving to display all of the trophies.
“All this rich tradition here and no one ever sees it,” Crawford said. “With this, not only will the alumni but the people who come to our school and sit in the bleachers will be able to look up and see what they’ve done. ...
“We really do well for our size academically, so we thought we’d put those up there, too.”
Crawford has been pleased with the results, both in the way the gymnasium is looking and in the enthusiasm and pride it has generated among the students.
“It really made them get a new sense of pride in their school — and any time you put paintbrushes in kids’ hands, they like it,” he said.
Students came in during lunch hours or stayed after school to make sure they kept the project on track.
“I had a student come in over Christmas break, called up and janitor and arranged time” to work on the gym, he said.
Crawford and team leaders set deadlines that had to be met, and meeting or missing those deadlines affected grades.
Photo by David Doemland
J.T. Crawford helps Neil Baird, 14, with a question as Neil works on painting a pennant Wednesday morning at Reading School.
“This is an excellent real-life project,” he said. “A lot of times you’ll like your job but a lot of times you’ll hit a deadline, and it’s stressful.”
But work continues to progress, though it is slightly behind goal. Students are painting doors and door jams to coordinate with school colors, and are using steel wool to polish the hardware.
“We’re going to just try to do a good job,” he said.
“So many of these schools have consolidated and there’s so much rich history and pride in these communities. The pride of Reading is this gym. We’re just trying to really pretty it up.”
Comments
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Posted by bassman (anonymous) on January 16, 2007 at 10:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I is to bad the students did not know the effort that was given by the principal of Reading Grade School from 1989-99 to host tournaments , bought banners, new goals/backboards and new uniforms from money earned from all the tournaments hosted by the school. Alot of the banners were bought with money that came from the principals own bank account. Also, the many other people that helped host these tournaments. We had PTO, teachers, parents, staff members as well as many great half time performances during these fund raising tournaments. We were a class act and it is great they are doing a make over to the great gym at Reading Grade School in Reading Kansas. The name of the tournaments were called the Orange and Black Classic!
Posted by canchaser_412 (anonymous) on January 29, 2007 at 1:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I would like to thank the students that are preserving Readings history! I for one know what it was like to win one of those League Basketball championships in that gym. Reading is still a class act and I would love to go play basketball again in that gym.
Posted by basketballstar (anonymous) on September 9, 2007 at 9:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
My class worked a hallway wall going to the 5th-8th grade class rooms. We worked on it for a long time. It came out really good and the two classes that worked on it, worked long and hard. It was for our computer class and it was over history. Crawford always had us doing stuff in class about history, but it was fun. Hope that the wall looks as great as the day we finished it. Thank you Mr. Crawford for letting us work on a wall in the school, our class will always remember it and show our kids someday. Hope that the gym comes out great and keep showing the history our of school.
Posted by midnightlilly (anonymous) on September 20, 2007 at 3:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I went to Reading School, hopefully things have changed for the better since I was a student there.
J.T. Crawford is one of the better teachers working at that school today, he was my teacher when I attended school there.
Its a shame that the city of Reading has fallen threw the cracks, when I was a child it was a very fun place to live.
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