When families gather for next week’s Trigg County High School Class of 2025 graduation, and embrace ceremonies at Wildcat Gymnasium, everyone should take one final look around.
Because it’s going to be the last time the building, inside and out, looks that way.
Trigg County Public Schools Board of Education convened in special session Thursday afternoon — its board members elated as they unanimously accepted construction bids for what’s going to be a full slate of renovations to the facility.
Director of Operations Matt Ladd and Sherman Carter Barnhart Architect Chris Jones confirmed that bids came back favorable for a long list of desires outside of the base project — which has been awarded to C&C Contracting LLC out of Russellville.
All told, Chief Financial Officer Holly Greene noted the soft costs should come in around $3.2 million, while Ladd and Jones further confirmed this will include not only an access elevator and new bleachers, but improved railing, new basketball goals, a full demolition of the press box, a new paint job, an expanded lobby, an expanded trophy case, an expanded concession stand, remodeled bathrooms and a few other needed touch ups in several spots.
Ladd said that all coaches and teachers have been notified about a tentative timeline, which currently has work being finished right before Thanksgiving Break — just in time for the 2025-26 high school basketball season — while Jones noted that the elevator should be the final step.
Ladd double confirmed that the phases will be demolition, construction and then painting, with a pre-construction meeting likely to be scheduled as early as next week.
In other school news:
— Board members also approved the hiring of Rocket Alumni Solutions on a five-year contract. The plan, according to Superintendent Dr. Rex Booth, is for the creation of a digital awards Hall of Fame to be installed in the renovated Wildcat Gymnasium. A 75-inch touch screen, he said, will give access to Trigg County’s esteemed academic and athletic distinctions, and was first explored as a solution because wall space is running thin inside the high school.
Booth and Ladd both said that physical plaques could then be delivered to families and loved ones, rather than be lost and/or damaged in storage.
— Under recommendations from Greene, board members also approved a tentative FY26 budget, with a permanent budget due this September. In it, she said, remains a 1% base salary increase and a 50-cent increase per hour for classified staff, a reduced retirement system rate, an increase in SEEK base appropriations and an estimated Average Daily Attendance.
General Fund revenue is expected to be north of $21.8 million, while federal and state grant support is expected to be above $3.08 million.
Also, following questions from board members Charlene Sheehan and Theresa Cunningham Allen, Greene confirmed that FNB Spirit Card expenditures have been extremely frugal since the beginnings of co-curricular construction, and that as of this week, more than $100,000 resides in that account.
Booth said the only expenditure from it this year were the district-wide T-shirts, costing about $16,000, and that’s something he plans to implement annually. Meanwhile, Greene said Trigg County continues to be a giving community.
She said a committee overseeing its uses had long been defunct, and that since then, only a few expenditures have been approved through board votes. Since she’s been here, she guesstimated that four checks total had been written out of the account, and she suggested that something “above and beyond,” perhaps for students and staff, would be helpful.
