School Board hears from AD

South Putnam Community School Board heard an update on the athletic departments at the middle and high schools during its Tuesday evening meeting.

Athletic Director Matt Griswold told board members the number of middle school students participating in cross country, swimming and wrestling has increased.

"The wrestling team filled all their weight classes for the very first time," said Griswold. "I'm very excited about that."

He explained that kids going out for the sports go back to school and tell others, "It's not so bad." This encourages more kids to come out for the sport.

Griswold also asked for approval for the Quarterback Club to run a pipe from existing water lines up the hill for additional water at the top of the hill. There is no expense to the school and the club will do all the work. Board members approved the request.

He also explained about the rotation for the girl's sectional. The boy's sectional is held at South Putnam every year, but the girl's is rotated because other schools such as Speedway wanted to host some sectionals as well. There are three more years in the rotation. Griswold is hoping that the schools will then decide on holding the sectionals at one school so people will know it is always at that site.

He also talked about the software the school now has for swim meets and how much it helps with scoring. It is also used with track, softball and baseball.

Griswold brought up the suggestion that if sometime when it's possible to add a storage area behind the baseball dugouts. Board member Darwin Nelson suggested they contact Area 30 and see if they could build a structure. Griswold agreed to talk with them.

He discussed the possibility of adding advertisements in the form of signs to raise additional funds for sports programs. Griswold said he spoke with the Endeavor Communications CEO and Dixie Chopper about ideas for corporate sponsorships.

Endeavor told him if they sponsor one event for a school they would have to do it for all the schools in their service area.

Griswold said Dixie Chopper already does a lot for South Putnam schools. The athletic department may look into doing advertising signs in the future.

In other business, Superintendent Bruce Bernhardt told the board the school had to send in their application for summer school courses and they planned to offer high school and junior high school math and English classes.

"This is all tentative right now. We won't have the classes unless we have enough students to fill it so we get funding. We won't know that until later, but we have to submit now," said Bernhardt.

The school year has been extended one day due to weather issues. The last day of school is now set as May 28.

"We had six different two-hour delays because of weather conditions. It's been very unusual. We also had no school on four days. We have one more day before we get into problems with graduation and still have the rest of February and March to get through," said Bernhardt.

Information about the addition to the school schedule will be sent home by the school principals in each school.

At the end of the meeting Steve Cash reminded people of the Farm Bureau Legislative Update in the board room at the Farm Bureau this Saturday. State Rep. Nancy Michael will be present and possibly State Sen. Connie Lawson who was at the last meeting. It is open to the public.