COLUMBIANA District will open weight room

Residents can begin workouts at the weight facility in March.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
COLUMBIANA -- Crestview school officials want to help district residents shed the winter blahs and maybe even a few pounds.
Superintendent John Dilling said the district's new weight training facility, used up to now exclusively by Crestview athletes and physical education pupils, will be open weekday evenings for district residents' use beginning in March.
He said some new equipment was recently added to the facility, which includes weight machines, free weights and an exercise area.
Hours: Dilling said the weight room will be open to all district pupils and residents from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday each week through the end of the school year. Pupils under 14, however, must be accompanied by an adult, he said.
There will be a nominal charge for adult visitors, and district pupils can use the facility at no cost, he said.
The board has created the position of weight room manager and notified teaching staff of the supplemental contract.
The cost for adults has not yet been established, but the fee will help pay for the weight room manager, he said.
Funding: The $350,000 weight room attached to the high school gymnasium and adjacent to the football field opened last year.
The training facility was funded with state equity money, donations from booster groups and individuals and the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Much of the labor and materials was also donated, Dilling said.
Crestview athletes had previously done their weight training in a converted shed.
Children and staff moved into a new high school, elementary and the renovated high school to middle school at the start of the 1997-98 school year. That project was funded by about $9.5 million from the Ohio School Facilities Commission state building assistance fund and about $3 million from a bond issue voters approved in 1992.