HPS board approves wrestling, daycare

Hennessey school board members gave the green light to start a winter wrestling program and a daycare center for children of employees.

They made those decisions and others Monday night before an audience of about a dozen masked and unmasked parents, teachers, administrators and others in agenda topics.

Wrestling

Athletic Director Paul Hix, who suggested adding wrestling at earlier meetings, said the program would be for boys and girls in junior and high school.

“We might need two teams if we get enough girls in the junior high to compete,” he said. “There were 37 junior high kids who said they were interested, but some may decide they want to play basketball.”

He didn’t know the number of high school students interested.

Powerlifting classes could be changed to wrestling, said Hix, who is also the head football coach.

“And we could have 15-18 football players interested,” said Hix who just completed his first year in Hennessey.

On the finance side, Hix said the district could make $8-$10,000 a weekend by holding tournaments from November-December in The Dome.

“It would be a good windfall for the school… And an economic boost to the community to have 300-400 wrestlers and parents here for a 12-14 hour period,” he said.

Hix said he didn’t anticipate having a home high school tournament the first year.

Hix’s oldest son, Titan, 12, was a state wrestling champion this year, and he said there are other Hennessey parents who “travel all over” so their kids can wrestle.

He said he would recommend a coach later in the meeting.

Parents speak out

“I’ll help with the coaching,” said Russ Choate, from the audience.

He said he has been helping his son, (Rogan, 2021 HES fourth grader), and nephew (Kason Scruggs, 2021 HES fifth grader).

“We go to matches almost every weekend all over the state,” he said, “And I’d be willing to donate a couple of practice mats.”

Choate said they could use “traveling mats” for the younger kids and could get four matches on one mat for the smaller kids.

He said the mats are 48x48, and Woods said that’s about one-half of the court, and the scoreboards are already set up for wrestling.

The cost is about $5,000 for some mats, said someone during the meeting.

Choate said he thought they could borrow some mats from others, and Dustin Fipps at OSU said we could use some of their mats.

“I’m a huge advocate of wrestling,” said David Tillman, 1988 HHS grad from the audience “It was taken out after my sophomore year.

“I’d volunteer to help with wrestling,” he added, “but my question is, why do it this year here with COVID-19?”

Tillman said he didn’t think the school would make $10,000 on a meet in Hennessey the way Coach Hix suggested could happen.

He said cross country teams only get t-shirts because there were no uniforms for them to wear, “and I just question if it’s the right timing for wrestling here.”

“We have a track that’s just wasting away and we’ve never even had a meet on it and in the past we’ve had some great teams,” Tillman said.

He didn’t mention it, but his oldest daughter, Abby, made All-State in Cross Country (2010) and the girls track and field team won the 2A state championship the year she graduated (2011).

“You’re absolutely right,” said board member Patrick Griffin. “We need to get that so we can at least practice on it. As far as support for getting uniforms, we need to explore that. We need to address that.”

Woods said the surface under the track is bad and his last estimate was $350,000 to redo it.

“It’s 50 feet too short for meets,” said Tillman.

Woods said they’ve discussed coming up with longterm and short-term plans for the track.

There is a possibility they could use the old bus barn for restrooms and a concession stand, and “smooth out” an area for parking.

A newspaper search shows that Tom Dunn was the last long-term wrestling coach in Hennessey. He coached both wrestling and gymnastics in Hennessey 1978-86. There have been several parent-led peewee teams throughout the years and several wrestlers who competed with other groups, or independently.

Board members at the Monday meeting were President Dr. James Matthew Matousek, Vice President Luke Lough, Cristopher Choate and Griffin. Absent was board member and clerk Joe Garrison, who was in the hospital, but expected home this week.

Daycare at former admin office

Woods proposed, and the board approved, turning the former administration building into a daycare service for use only by school employees.

“It wouldn’t be free,” he said.

It would be comparable to other facilities, and said about $20-$25 a day.

There are 29 teachers with children ages 3 and younger.

“Long-term I thought it would be better to have it in the high school,” Woods said, noting it would be easier to get the young children into The Dome storm shelter if needed.

“I thought we could have it in the high school shop area next to Mrs. Curran’s classroom,” he said.

“There is no air-conditioning in there,” said Beth Curran, art/photography/ yearbook teacher from the audience.

Woods said they need electrical work done in the former administration offices, along with new flooring, walls painted, etc.

“My thought was we could also probably have some of the family consumer classes there,” said Woods.

He said they need to have everything in place before they can be certified as a daycare provider and will need a director and three support staff. He said the staff would need some training.

Early Childhood Center Principal Stacey Schovanec said they have someone in mind for the director job.

The daycare would also be an incentive to attract teachers and it would be convenient and a time-saver for them since it’s across the street from the high school.

“We’ve lost teachers because they haven’t been able to find daycare services or services near here,” said Elementary Principal Barry Crosswhite.

Schovanec agreed, and said she was excited about the daycare. She said they might be able to work an early bird literacy program along with it.

Resignations

Woods said he received resignation letters from Haylie (Simunek) Wilczek, high school, special education and girls basketball coach, who accepted a head coaching job at Pioneer, and Linda Soudek, high school English teacher and speech/ debate coach, who is taking a job in Putnam City.

Hirings and other business

Watch for story in the weekend edition.