Ridgewood holds mortgage burning ceremony
Ridgewood Local School District hosted a mortgage burning ceremony on Jan. 7 in the Jill Collins Performing Arts Center at Ridgewood High School.
School Board President Frank Mathews thanked everyone who came to celebrate paying off the high school debt. “Back in 1998-99 during the Ridgewood School year the community and school board started the process of planning and building this wonderful high school,” he said.
Mathews recognized and thanked the current and former school board members, superintendents, and treasurers, as well as West Lafayette Mayor Jessie Tubbs and council members Adam Fisher and Christie Maurer, township trustees, Mike Gress, Rick Berger, Travis Hahn, and County Commissioners Gary Fischer and Bob Bigrigg for attending. Principal Todd Stoffer and the administrative team were recognized as well.
“During the flood of 2019 and following the pandemic we understood that Ridgewood Schools are the heart and soul of this community,” Mathews said. “During the flood Ridgewood Middle School was set up as a distribution center where people could get food, water and cleaning supplies. Township trustees and city council members approached them about using leftover recovery money from COVID to install air handlers in every building to filter and purify the air in the buildings 25 times a day. We couldn’t have done that without our council and our village townships. It really does take all of us. We appreciate you all being here and sharing this great celebration.”
Ridgewood music teacher Haley Evans compiled a video of the new high school building while under construction using photos by Larry Stahl and the Dan and June Markley collection. The Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum digitized the photos for the video presentation.
“I can’t say enough about the community,” current superintendent Mike Masloski said. “School is about education but I can’t say enough about our building, we’re second to none. I can’t say enough about our maintenance staff or mechanics, for the work they do. When things look nice, when things are clean, when things are safe, we are able to be better educators. The students are able to achieve at a higher level. We are also proud that they were able to do some construction with new bleachers, a new bus garage, a new roof on the building and install new safer doors on the middle school. Our students have state of the art technology. We’ve been able to do all these things in this district without coming back to the tax payers. I have been here 25 years and we have never had to work on a levy. We are operating on funds from 1985.”
Former School Board president Karen Brown said, “It is exciting to be a part of this. It brings back fond memories. It is so fitting that we are sitting in this auditorium named for Jill Collins because nobody worked harder to get the funds to have this auditorium and maximizing the use of it than Jill.”
School Bond information was presented by current school treasurer Jay Tingle. “On May 4, 1999 voters past a school improvement bond for 1.3 million dollars. In November of 99 the public passed a classroom facility improvement bond total estimated cost at $20,173,934. Total of both bonds were over 21 million dollars. The original bond was funded by Bank One with an individual Todd Brown who helped see us through. The bond was a little over 4 million dollars at 7% rate. In 2006 we re-funded thru Huntington Bank for $2,814, 996 at 4% rate that saved tax payers $285,000. In 2016 we re-funded again with Peoples Bank, again with Todd Brown’s help, $2,250,000 at a rate of 1.908% which saved tax payers $153,000. Thank you to Peoples Bank, Todd Brown and Kirk Frazee for attending.”
Joy Padgett, state representative and senator, was recognized for her efforts in the project. Everyone was then invited to come outside the building to witness the mortgage burning ceremony. Past and present board members formed a half circle around the burning barrel. Karen Brown held the document while the original members lit the mortgage document on fire.
All classrooms were open for tours following the ceremony and members of Ridgewood FFA served refreshments in the cafeteria. Refreshments were provided by Pearl Valley Cheese, French Press Cafe, and Backroads Bakery.
Category: Education
