Positive change made for Coshocton
COSHOCTON – More than 400 people attended the dedication ceremony for the new Coshocton Elementary School on Sunday, Oct. 20. The Coshocton Elementary Choir, under the direction of Aaron Mencer, led off with the National Anthem and a special song written just for the new school.
The new school is a state of the art facility, three level building that houses PreK through sixth grade with a student capacity of 970. Dr. David Hire gave the welcome and special acknowledgments followed by bond committee co-chair Judy Maxwell. Ohio Facilities Construction Commission project manager Karen Little told the audience that seeing the kids in the building is what “it’s all about.”
Coshocton City Mayor Steve Mercer spoke, telling those in attendance, “I cannot understate the critical importance of the educational component in making this a complete community to live and work. Our citizens rose to the need of replacing three costly and dilapidated old schools to support a levy to build this beautiful new one. This dedication represents to this city what I call a milestone moment. In the life cycles of times and events a milestone marks a place in the sand to measure where we’ve been and where we’re going.”
Dr. Hire, Coshocton City Schools Superintendent, said the day meant much to him, “The first word that comes to mind is relief. We are at the end of a very long journey – I’m just really grateful – it has been a long stressful demanding time but it is all worth it. And it’s just great to see people’s faces, I’m glad we are at the near end of this because now we can start to focus on getting back to learning and the real reason we are here, but it is fun to celebrate and we are very excited today and again, we’re just super grateful to our community.”
Dr. Todd Salmans, Coshocton City Schools Board of Education President, said of the day, “Overwhelming joy. I mean – I can’t say anything else. It was a dream come true to see that groundbreaking, I didn’t think we could outdo that – but today we outdid it. My hope is that we can bring a little spark to the city – like the Mayor said, it’s a combined effort and when you have good schools good things happen. I’m optimistic, I don’t know for sure if it will make a difference to the whole community as far as bringing jobs. But I can say this – we’re not the excuse for people not to come here anymore. And that’s important to me.”
mark@coshoctoncountybeacon.com
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