GENTRY -- It was a special afternoon on Thursday after school let out because teachers and staff of the Gentry Intermediate School were allowed to tour the inside of the new classroom facility which is under construction and sign their names on steel beams in the new facility.

And a good number of teachers and staff members looked at building drawings, figured out where in the new building their classrooms may be located and signed their names on the steel support beans in the structure.

Of course, when the building is finished, the signatures won't be visible to the public because they will be inside the classroom facility walls, but the teachers and staff members who do so much to provide an education to children in the school district will know their names are there in the building's support structure, much the same way as their instruction will be there inside the hearts and minds of local youth who pass through the new school facility.

The beam signing also marks a significant step in the building's construction because soon those walls and classrooms will be built and finished and the new facility will look more like the finished product than a skeleton of a new school.

The targeted completion date for the new facility is around Thanksgiving of this year but many factors could yet affect that date. But, come late fall of next year, if the new two-story classroom facility is not yet finished, it should be close and soon be filled with Gentry students in the third through fifth grades.

Community on 01/31/2018