Fixing Wyoming Indian HS Gym

 Victoria Fregoso reports, vfregoso@k2tv.com

 Crews at Wyoming Indian High School are repairing their gym after a storm caused serious damage to the roof and floor.



  Piles of wood are scattered across the 22,000 square foot gym at Wyoming High School.
Fremont County School District 14 is making repairs after one wet and windy storm in February tore a portion of the roof and damaged the floor.

"The wind was so severe that it pulled three-fourths of the roof back," said Michelle Hoffman, Superintendent for Fremont County School District 25. "Which exposed that to the severe rains we were having and came in our gym and we had a swimming pool."

Crews immediately sprang into action to save as much of the gym as possible.

"It looked like a water fall in here, about 30-feet of our wall had water coming in," said Gordon Hiwalker, the Construction and Maintenance Coordinator at Wyoming Indian Schools. "And we tried to get our crews in here to get the carpets down and plastic over it but we didn't catch it in time."

Since then the school has gone without a gym, and has had to change the location of physical education classes and athletic events.

"I've got P.E. classes this afternoon and we're trying to finish everything outdoors and it's really hard," said Aleta Moss, a P.E. Teacher and Coach.  "First unit was volleyball and we don't have access to a gym so we're trying to improvise and do the best we can."

The gym did have a new roof installed for the graduation ceremony in May.
And right now it is going to take workers 3 weeks to lay the wood floor down, another 3 weeks to sand and paint it and about 10 days after that, the floor can be put to use.

"So we're hoping by the first middle part of October we have our gym back," Hoffman said.

All together, the roof cost about $650,000 to repair and the floor another $215,000. The district had to request emergency funds from the school facilities commission.
And with basketball season a few months away, the students, teachers and parents are ready to have their gym back.

"Our gym is like the center of our community," Moss said. "Especially during basketball season and all sports seasons, because it brings the community together. Come basketball season, this place is full."