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  • Chris Delehoy stands on stilts as he works in what will be the boy's locker room at Mulhall-Orlando High School.

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March 13, 2010

Mulhall-Orlando school gym spruced up

By Anita Pere Stillwater NewsPress

STILLWATER, Okla. — A remodel of the Mulhall-Orlando High School gym, athletic office, locker rooms and band room is slated to be finished today, construction crews said last week.

 “I’ll be ecstatic when it’s done,” said Matt Luse, superintendent of Mulhall-Orlando Public Schools. “I didn’t even like bringing people back here it was so ugly,” Luse said of the condition of the locker rooms and other facilities before the remodel started. 

Lambert Construction Co., in Stillwater is making the renovations.

The band room will also serve as a storm shelter for Orlando residents. Ricochet halls designed to trap projectiles lead to the concrete room.

Mulhall residents gathered at a safe room inside at the elementary school, which was rebuilt after the 1999 tornado.

“When it’s finished we’ll have a shelter at both communities,” Luse said.

As part of the remodel, concrete bleachers and a stage in the gym were removed. New bleachers will be installed. The roof over the gym was also repaired to stop leaks and the gyms walls have been repainted.

Money for the renovations came from a February 2009 bond election. A bond for $495,000 passed with almost 90 percent of the vote, Luse said.

The bond has paid for most of the renovations, except for the cost of fixing some structural problems that weren’t discovered until the remodel was under way. Luse said the floor under the stage wasn’t level, so construction workers had to pour concrete to level the floor. The wall the bleachers backed up to didn’t have adequate support once the bleachers were removed, causing another unforeseen expense.

New ceiling lights in the gym are the only piece of the project that won’t be completed by Sunday, said Marty Fowler, job superintendent for the remodel. He hopes to have new lights installed within a month.

When work crews removed ceiling tiles and lights, they found about 15 basketballs and baseballs, Fowler said.

“Thirty years of throwing balls against the ceiling, some of them got through,” he said.

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