Feature Photo By: Luis Ramos- The new gym finally opens its doors to the students of RHS. It was built over the summer in hopes that the students would be proud of their new facility.
If you have not set a pair of admiring eyes on the new RHS gym floor, the school community would say that you’ve been living under a tall stack of books at Rangeview.
“Personally, I believe the place looks great, it matches RHS now,” said Dean Sobolewski. “When you go in there and see all the red and black… It’s such an improvement, I have pride over that, seeing our big double R’s.”
Nevertheless, before the motivating work of art appeared in our gym, ruinous rows of bleachers emerged more as the years went by, and the floor kept getting more out of date.
Fortunately, every school district is on a time schedule to get things replaced. Initially, Central High School was next on that roster, but due to Rangeview desperately needing a renewal, it moved up to the front of the line and the project began during summer break.
The money given from the district was then carried to the athletic department in order to give the beat up gym some upgrades. Gladly, since it was an offering from the Aurora School District it willingly paid every single dollar, while Rangeview had to pay none.
It is no surprise that the gym needed to be remodeled in more than one way. To begin, the gym floor colors had not been changed for over 12 years. Not to mention, the colors that the old floor had did not match the school colors, as they were maroon and brown.
The old bleachers had been around for roughly 35 years, which is roughly when Rangeview was first opened to students. Over the years, the struggle to bring them out for assemblies and other sizable gatherings increased, and more fractures were noticed as time went on. Reports of students losing their balance on the bleachers due to the breakage raised concerns and indicated that something had to be done soon.
The hesitance towards remodeling the gym occurred when the school administrators found out that the new regulations implied over the years would require new and more modern bleachers. However, adding walkways would force Rangeview to lose a significant amount of seats; the safety of the students mattered most and the subject was not disputed.
“I think the walkways add a better place now because before you’d have to go where everyone else was sitting and it was difficult to get through the bleachers. I think the new look of the gym just overall improves it, I would want to go to the gym more often,” said senior Elena Dedi.
As a result, the project to put new bleachers began; meanwhile others were thinking, if new bleachers were going to be put in, also remodeling the floor would be a logical idea.
The gym floor had to be sand all the way down to the wood to treat the wood and remove the old paint. The floor was then repainted with the double R’s and a coat of varnish was finally placed back over it. Though it was considered quite an easy task, it was costly due to the fact it was roughly $25,000 said Strouse.
With the bleachers, the entire rows were set to be removed in order to bring in stronger more refined ones. The colors were favored mainly by Victor Strouse, the athletic director at Rangeview. Students agree the results were eye-catching. Nevertheless, according to Strouse the expense of the bleachers laid around $125,000.
Sobolewski gave his share into the project as well by picking out the minor details for the floor. Strouse took charge of dealing how to fit every kid at RHS into the assembly and planning the overall look of the gym. Strouse also arranged it in hope to make the students proud of their new gym.
“That double R in the middle of the gym is what we’re all about; that double R means Rangeview,” said Strouse.
At last, the school gym finally matches the school colors, and the students agreed that the end results were astonishing.
