Renovated, expanded CHS hailed as a ‘showcase’ school

Community members tour one of the new science rooms at Corbin High School. A special dedication ceremony was held Tuesday to mark principle completion of a $10 million renovation project.

Corbin High School’s faculty, staff and students may be close to understanding what the Egyptians felt when the Great Pyramids were finished or how Michaelango felt when finally declaring the artwork in the Sistine Chapel to be finished.

After working in, around and through three phases of construction that essentially resulted in a brand new building, construction on the $10.8 million renovation and addition, school officials officially declared the project complete during at a dedication ceremony/open house Tuesday night.

“I’m feeling that feeling of amazement,” said Principal John Derek Faulconer, of the project that added 40,415 square feet of floor space to the building. “It is almost like when you get your house finished. It is just a very big house.”

Even after spending two year watching the project move forward toward completion, Faulconer said it is hard not to look around and find something new that catches your eye.

“Just the little stuff like the frosted glass (in the lunchroom) and on the counter tops upstairs, there are metal pieces that have the Redhound logo cut out,” Faulconer explained.

Faulconer described the building as, “a showpiece.” He said the next step is to continue to raise bar in areas of academics, attendance and everything else that goes on at Corbin High School.

“We will find something and we will set the bar higher and we will set out to meet it and exceed it,” Faulconer said.

Faulconer said with additions and renovations, the building can easily accommodate 1,000 students. Current enrollment is 855.

Seniors Seth Botner and Lucas Lay were among the students who volunteered to give tours of the school. They are part of the one class that doesn’t know what it is like to attend Corbin High School without it being under construction.

Lay said the hardest part is the way classes have constantly been shuffled around to accommodate the various phases of construction.

“On trimester you will be in one room and the next trimester you are in another,” the students explained, summing it up as, “hectic.”

Despite the extra distractions and obstacles, Botner said it was a unique experience and even declared it to be, “cool.”

“It was supposed to be done by our junior year but we only get to get a week out of it, probably,” Botner said.

Juniors Kayla Lunsford and Christin Cook will be able to experience their last year at the school without the headache of construction.

After three years of eating lunch in the overcrowded lunchroom, the girls agreed they are looking forward to the eating lunch in the expanded area that has separate areas for the upperclassmen and underclassmen.

Jill Lewis, who teaches journalism and U.S. history, stood outside her very own classroom. Over the last four years, Lewis has been in six different classrooms. She has finally been able to begin unpacking, some of the things that have been boxed up since construction began.

“I had a file cabinet that held my lesson plans and tests and other papers,” Lewis explained. “It has been with me for 16 years and we finally unloaded it and it went to the trash heap.”

Steve Jewell, who teaches anatomy and biology, said after 24 years, he is really enjoying all of the space he has in his classroom, which is specially designed for science classes.

Jewell emphasized the storage areas and workroom adjacent to his classroom. It is connected to the other science teachers and provides space for the teachers to meet in a conference setting.

Corbin Independent Schools Board Chair Kim Croley credited Kevin Cheek of Sherman-Carter-Barnhart Architects for taking the various ideas and creating the designs and David Jackson of Hacker Brothers, Inc., the contractors on the project, who brought the designs to life.

She added a special thank you to the faculty, staff and students for taking the construction in stride and continuing to work through it.

“It is clear all of these noises and distractions were worth it,” Croley said.

Corbin Mayor Willard McBurney said with the construction of the new primary school and the completion of the high school renovations and construction, the school board and the community continue to provide the tools necessary to allow Corbin students to excel.

“Throughout the state, people know Corbin because of the Corbin School System,” McBurney said, noting that reputation is a great tool in the effort to draw new businesses and new people to Corbin.

“If we can draw someone to Corbin because of the schools, that is what we are going to do,” McBurney said.