Riley Land

The Parkway West Pathfinder reflects on the best stories published in 2016.

A five year beautification plan is underway in hopes of a spring service day for students to participate in. Activities secretary Joyce Debenport began working with Principal Jeremy Mitchell, Athletic Director Brian Kessler and Building Manager Scott Bollmann to develop a master plan.

“I think it’s been in several people’s minds for a while,” Debenport said. “I ended up working this summer for a group at the stadium. They had a football team and so I was here every day and just kind of looking around and my mind just goes like, ‘That needs to be done, oh that needs to be done’.”

Debenport began writing down her ideas and thoughts and once she had something put together, she confided with Mitchell. However, after realizing that more input was needed, Debenport responded by reaching out to the WPO where a couple of parents took a look at her ideas and gave feedback.

“They produced a 23-page email that has pictures of everything around school that they felt like needed maybe a little attention,” Debenport said.

The next step Debenport worked on was contacting Bollmann to see what beautification changes were within reason, and what could wait.

“There are some things that are super easy like painting our handrails outside, “ Bollmann said. “That’s something that’ll often need to happen every now and then, but it makes the place look nicer. It’s going to be our 50th year next year and there’s an idea about designing a new road banner that would reflect the 50-year thing, but those banners are expensive as well.”

Bollmann, Mitchell, Debenport and Kessler reviewed the ideas for the five year plan and one thing they mentioned that would probably involve all five years would be to replace the outside trash cans.

“I kind of have to weigh out what’s real and what’s not,” Bollmann said. “We do want to replace the outside trash cans, those have rusted.”

The problem with replacing the trash cans is that one trash can’s cost is ranged from $600-$700.

“When you’re looking to get 10 trash cans, you’re looking at around $7000,” Bollmann said.

According to Debenport, replacing the trash cans would be more part of the 5-year plan rather than the ideas they want to finalize by spring.

“We hope to maybe have a spring service day of some sort and tell the student body once we’ve confirmed a plan,” Debenport said.