Neelyville R-IV looks at potential future projects

The Neelyville R-IV school board approved Thursday night the exploration or going to bid on several new small projects for the district.

Its current project, building a new administration building for the high school, is making progress, superintendent Debra Parish said. The sheetrock has been installed and the taping crew will come in this week.

Looking at future projects, the softball and baseball coaches came to the board to discuss building a concession stand/restroom building by the fields.

Parish said the high school ball fields have been moved in the past couple of years, which means the current concession stand is not close to where the high school games are now being played.

“Several of the district patrons and parents have requested that we consider that,” she said.

The board is allowing the coaches to gather plans for a building and start getting a cost estimate for the project in order to have more information before moving forward on any decisions.

The board also approved putting out for bid two projects. Parish said the projects are each less than $50,000, which means the district is not required to put them out for competitive bid. However, the board decided to advertise the jobs and invite contractors to send in bids.

One is the softball field, which includes dirt work as well as moving the backstop, resetting the bases and conditioning the new field.

“It holds quite a bit of water,” Parish said.

The other project is a maintenance shop. Parish said it would be a 30-by-40-by-12 feet metal building on the northwest side of the Neelyville campus. It would be designed for storage of items such as tractors and lawn mowers with a space to work on that equipment as needed.