By Charlotte Underwood

JACKSBORO, TN (WLAF) – At a special-called meeting on Tuesday afternoon, the Campbell County Board of Education approved “plan D” for a new weight room, an auxiliary gymnasium, and multiple other athletic improvements at Campbell County High School that will benefit “all sports at the school”. It includes the renovation of the current weight room to get it “up to date and make it state-of-the-art,” according to CCHS Athletic Director Brad Collette. The renovation will include” all new weights, and roll-up glass garage doors that will walk right out onto the track.” Other improvements include $50,000 set aside for a new band tower for the CCHS Band, along with $20,000 for new batting cages for the baseball team, as well as funds for soccer improvements.

Collette pitched the proposal for Plan D at last week’s BOE building and grounds committee meeting, and it was met with support.

Originally the plans had been for an auxiliary gym and a new large weight room including 60 yards of in-door turf, but that came in “way over budget” according to Collette, who has been working to come up with the “best plan” for CCHS over the past several months.

The indoor turf came in at around $800,000 over the $1.7 million budget aligned for the project.

“It just wasn’t going to be affordable with what we had; I didn’t want to go back to the board and ask for more money, I felt like they had given us money, and we needed to make it work and figure out what was best for our sports. All of our sports need a weight room that is up and running, and this is the quickest way to get that done,” Collette said.

The auxiliary gym will be of benefit immediately and also help out if CCHS adds additional sports to its athletics program.

“If we ever get wrestling, we need that space, we’re already fighting for time in the gym as it is. This will give us another space for cheer, dance, volleyball, and basketball. Having another weight room will be beneficial for our minor sports to use and we can get all of this in the budget and more with t what the board of education gave us,” Collette said.

Along with the renovations to the current weightroom, the new auxiliary gym and the new weight room, Plan D also calls for multiple renovations of athletic facilities at CCHS.

“We’re going to renovate our baseball concession stand, the batting cage, we’re going to build softball a covered hitting area at their field. We’re going to get soccer a new score board and a new sound system and renovate their concession stand and bathrooms. We’re going to get track a pretty good-sized storage building because they don’t have anywhere to store their equipment, so we’re going to do a lot of things to help all the sports. All the coaches were excited about the plan,” Collette said.

He said he worked for several months on plans to try to get the exact facility they had wanted, but “just couldn’t get the size they wanted for the price they needed” so they “went with upgrades to the facilities.” Among these upgrades includes a band tower for the CCHS band practice field.

“We’re looking at some pretty nice band towers, we tried to include everybody in this plan, all the coaches were on board, Band Director Adam Wright was on board, and I just feel like this plan brought everyone together more. It gives us the extra buildings that we need to practice for the sports that need it and still upgrade all our facilities across the board,” Collette said.

The funds that are budgeted for the various renovations in the plan are just estimates, according to Collette, who said if there were any funds left over after the project’s completion that those funds would go towards starting a project for tennis courts at CCHS.

Collette said the renovations on the current weight room were expected to start as soon as possible. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 07/03/2024-6AM)

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