Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 2, 1995 TAG: 9507050025
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV19 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
The 13,820-square-foot Louisa P. Chrisley Physical Fitness Center is also helping adults pull, push and lift themselves into shape using weights and machines.
The center is open to the public from 3:45 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. Monday through Thursday, for a $10 monthly fee.
The $1.2 million center next to the school's field house at Kenneth J. Dobson Stadium is a tribute to community enterprise. It was constructed at no cost to the school system, with money, labor and materials donated by county residents.
Dobson, a former county school superintendent who now volunteers for coaching duties at the school, and Randy Chrisley, widower of the woman for whom the facility is named, headed the fund-raising effort. There is still about $65,000 to be raised to complete payment, and several fund-raising events are being planned to accomplish that.
Pulaski County High School Principal Tom DeBolt brought the proposal for the center to the School Board two years ago. He maintained the job could be done without using tax money.
The board approved the project in August of that year, and ground was broken the same month. The facility is now in use, and its key was formally presented to School Board Chairman Ron Chaffin in May.
Besides the various physical fitness machines and weights and the padded mats for exercise space, the facility has a "climbing" room designed by science teacher David Carroll. Climbers insert pegs into holes in the room's walls and pull themselves up.
One reason for public support for the center was that the field house had run out of space for the school's athletic teams. Now they can shape up on state-of-the-art equipment. But Superintendent Bill Asbury found himself impressed at how the center has also improved the physical condition of students not in sports programs.
The facility allows each student to chart his or her progress on the fitness devices and, at a time when health experts decry the general physical condition of the nation's young people, Pulaski County students may be in better condition than ever.
"I don't think people know the hours and the effort that went into the concept of it," Asbury said. "I don't think there's anything like this in the nation. I have never heard of anything like this."
Dobson said it was DeBolt, the principal, who was "the driving force behind the scene" in getting the project completed.
"Certainly he deserves a lot of credit," Dobson said. "We've been down a few times, but he's picked us up."
"I don't think this building would even have been thought about, let alone get built, if it wasn't for Dr. DeBolt," agreed Charles Ward, a faculty member whose trades students built its plumbing, electrical connections and air conditioning. Three of its rooms are named for Ward, building trades teacher Grady Young, and Bobby Dunnigan who contributed much construction work.
Dominating the central exercise room's "Wall of Honor" are names of donors and a portrait of Louisa Chrisley, commissioned by her parents.
Chrisley began teaching at the school during the 1971-72 school year and, despite the illness which claimed her life, completed the 1986-87 year.
In the 1974-75 year, her girls' track team won the Western District championship. It was that year that the track team began being called the Cougar Express, a name by which it is still known.
by CNB