CENTRAL AUDITORIUM UNDERGOES RENOVATION

On Wednesday, 900 theater seats were removed from the Central High School Auditorium. On Thursday, a renovation crew began chipping acoustic tiles from the ceiling

By the time school starts next fall, 900 burgundy, upholstered chairs will fill the auditorium, 300 of them new and 600 of them refurbished. The ceiling will have a new coat of acoustic spray sealant. The house lights will be new.

The renovation project will cost about $90,000.

Steve Lukens, a Central High teacher and technical director for the drama department, stood atop scaffolding Thursday helping the crew of recent Central High graduates remove the tiles.

Lukens hopes eventually to replace the stage curtains and sound system, carpet the floors and air-condition the auditorium.

The auditorium had some 900 seats. About 300 of those were plastic stadium chairs installed in 1976. The plan at that time was to get rid of the old theater seats and replace them with plastic seats. That never occurred.

"To be quite honest, I was depressed," Lukens said. "I hated to look at the place."

The chairs were old and torn and mismatched. The auditorium roof had a water leak, which has been repaired, but some of the ceiling tiles had water stains. Other tiles were loosened during the 1990 earthquake.

The renovation project began four years ago when Lukens helped launch a "Chairperson campaign," asking people to adopt an auditorium seat so it could be refurbished.

About a third of the seats are sold. But the bulk of the renovation money, $65,000, came from the recent sale of the Campster School building. Cape Girardeau's Board of Education had dedicated money from the sale to the project.

Last year, the school district painted the auditorium. The gray and burgundy colors were selected by junior high art teacher Bruce LaPierre in anticipation of the chair replacements.

The auditorium has 30 house lights, which will be replaced by just nine new lights. Because of new technology, the nine lights will provide better lighting than the 30 old lights.

The chairs should installed in July.