Students break ground on East Marshall elementary addition
T-R PHOTOS BY ROBERT MAHARRY East Marshall Elementary School students, along with school board members Andy Cole and Ann Dee Bloom and Superintendent Kevin Seney, pose for a photo during a groundbreaking ceremony for the addition in Laurel on Wednesday morning.
A crew from Con-Struct Inc. was already on the scene moving dirt Wednesday morning at the future site of the East Marshall Elementary School addition in Laurel.
T-R PHOTOS BY ROBERT MAHARRY East Marshall Elementary School students, along with school board members Andy Cole and Ann Dee Bloom and Superintendent Kevin Seney, pose for a photo during a groundbreaking ceremony for the addition in Laurel on Wednesday morning.
A crew from Con-Struct Inc. was already on the scene moving dirt Wednesday morning at the future site of the East Marshall Elementary School addition in Laurel.
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LAUREL -- Just four days after a similar ceremony was held at the high school in Le Grand during the Pioneer Days celebration, East Marshall students, staff, board members and administrators came together on the elementary campus in Laurel to break ground on the addition that will serve students in Grades K-6 for decades into the future.
Superintendent Kevin Seney again delivered brief remarks, and representatives from Estes Construction, the construction manager on the project, were in attendance as crews from Con-Struct moved dirt in the background.
"If you don't know why we're here, it's because of all the construction that's happening behind us right now -- all the dirt, all the bulldozers, all the workers, all the construction, parking and things like that,” Seney said. "We are here to celebrate a brand new addition to East Marshall Elementary School that will serve our students and our staff for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years here at East Marshall, so this is truly an awesome thing. So thank you all for coming here."
The project is the result of a successful $19.8 million bond referendum that cleared the required 60 percent supermajority at the polls last November. Seney told the crowd that while the people of East Marshall matter greatly, top-notch facilities will help to set the district apart in the years to come. He went on to thank the school board, bond committee members who helped to rally support for the bond, FEH Architecture, Estes Construction and Ahlers and Cooney PC, among others.
Even though the sixth graders in the audience would not get to attend classes at the new elementary once it is finished in a few years, Seney said, they will still benefit from the new and improved junior high/high school addition in Le Grand.
From there, it was time to turn dirt on a rather chilly fall morning, and once they were done, the students headed back to class as the work on the addition, located just east of the current elementary building, continued.
Contact Robert Maharry at (641) 753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.