Phillips High gym gets makeover

BEAR CREEK - Community residents, industrial workers, Phillips Schools and the Town of Bear Creek have all joined forces to continue a long-overdue renovation  project of sports facilities on the PHS campus, part of an ongoing school restoration effort across the campus.
On Tuesday, Feb. 3, a walk-through was conducted on campus, attended by Phillips High School Principal Donna King, Bear Creek Town Clerk Kay Wiginton and Mark Sampson Jr., owner of Sampson and Shayne Cabinetry of Haleyville.  Sampson is also president of the Phillips School Athletic Booster Club.
They were joined by Brandie Westbrook, human resources manager and Richard Saliba, plant leader, at Owens Corning Doors, formerly known as Masonite, and Scott Rushing, assistant production manager at Timber Creek Housing of Bear Creek.
Each of these entities played a major role in the most recent restoration project of constructing, painting and providing fixtures for the men’s dressing room, women’s dressing room and coaches offices at the high school gym.
The project has also created the school’s first room designated solely for high school cheerleaders, as well as renovated the entire athletic area, making spacious offices or locker rooms out of former storage rooms and converting smaller, tight-fitting areas into storage.
Owens Corning Doors obtained a $10,000 community improvement grant, according to Saliba, explaining how they became involved in the restoration project.
“Every year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Owens Corning encourages employees to do a day of service to honor Martin Luther King,” Saliba stated.
Last year, the company helped the Kids for Life program, but decided this year on the long-overdue Phillips School renovation program, he continued.
“This year, we decided to start looking at local schools,” Saliba continued. “This (school) is the first one we did.”
Westbrook further explained the locker rooms for both the boys and girls each have been updated with new wooden locker spaces, complete with the Phillips School colors of crimson and black, with the girls area also having a flat screen TV, a couch and rug.
Both areas feature new cabinets thanks to Sampson’s business, which took concrete slabs already in place in the areas and used them as the foundation for decorative storage cabinets, Sampson said.
“It was just a really odd block of concrete that you couldn’t do anything with,” Sampson stated. “I built some cabinetry into it so it looks like there was nothing there, but you’ve got (plenty) of storage for anything they would need.”
Renovations include new desks, shelves and cabinets in coaching offices, as well as  the commons areas, all with a uniform look throughout, those involved in the renovations said.
KITH Kitchens had already donated wood for the cabinets, with employees from Sampson Shayne Cabinetry fastening the cabinets to the walls and Owens Corning doing the painting and graphics work.
Sampson, a 2001 PHS graduate, put  his heart into the project.
“The guest locker room on the other side, I had my company custom-build 28 lockers and utility for that area,” Sampson said.
Renovations also included new flooring, sink fixtures and other fixtures for the restroom areas, complete with new granite countertops.
“We did the painting and the plumbing because we changed out some toilets and got some new sinks, brought in some new cabinets and put in new plumbing for those.  We did painting and flooring,” Saliba stated.
“This was a very big overhaul, to have two companies come together the way they did,” Sampson pointed out.

Project increases 
student morale, school spirit

“To give our kids at Phillips School something they could be proud of is something they don’t get a lot,” Sampson added. 
“We’re not a high-income city,” Sampson explained. “We have several industries in  our town, but every industry we have is wholesale, so we don’t have sales tax like other towns do.
“Schools get their money to do things off sales tax dollars,” Sampson continued.
“I have had kids come up to me and say, ‘I love our locker rooms,’” Sampson said. “To give them something where they can come in here and feel comfortable and proud is priceless to me.”
“It gives the kids some things to look forward to, a place to put things, so things are not  piled up and hung everywhere,” Westbrook added. “It gives them a sense of pride.”
“That’s what our community projects are all about,” Saliba added. “We are not only going to just take from the community. We are going to give back to the community.”
King added, “With the athletes, I feel like that gave them some pride and some sense of importance, like they were important enough that we cared about doing these improvements.
“The mentality has been to settle for what you have,” King added. “We started the renovations and each day, different students would walk down here and they would just light up and say, ‘Y’all are doing this for us?’
“They are overjoyed that someone cared enough to come in and make improvements for them,” King pointed out.
The Town of Bear Creek has assisted in these community development projects by giving Phillips School $6,500, which was used to strip and wax the gym floors, noted Wiginton.
“We are always willing to give,” Wiginton said.  “We are always willing to donate as long as we can.
“These kids love an update.  They want to feel important, like these bigger schools do, so when they get something like this, they are proud of it,” Wiginton added.
The next major project King has requested is to have awnings installed so students do not have to unload or board buses in rainy or inclement weather.
“That is very important to us, to keep kids safe and dry,” King said.
Recent improvements in the series of school restoration projects include a separate job of painting the high school gym, resizing championship pictures to be more uniform on the walls,  new painting, colorful new school logos, new risers and even steps leading up to the risers, Sampson summarized.
These projects were made possible by grant funding, along with community donations, school officials said.