CEREMONY IS BYOD: (BRING YOUR OWN DIRT)

It's not often people bring their own dirt to a groundbreaking ceremony, but that's exactly what will happen Friday when the Cape Girardeau School District celebrates the commencement of work on the district's new high school.

Student representatives from each school will bring a special coffee mug of dirt to the groundbreaking ceremony, which begins at 11 a.m. and is open to the public. The ceremony will be held just north of the high school site on the parking lot of the nearly completed Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center. Both schools will share a 75-acre plot west of Kingshighway and east of Interstate 55 along a gravel section of Silver Springs Road.

Felicia Jenkins, a student representative from Central Junior High School, will be a featured speaker during the event. Jenkins, a freshman, will be a member of the first class to graduate from the new high school, which is scheduled to open in fall 2002.

Schools Superintendent Dr. Dan Steska said the incoming dirt will be spread at the site as a symbolic act. "What that shows is you have all the schools investing in the future of the high school, the rich tradition we have in our community," he said.

Contractors will be asked to bid for a contract to build the high school in January, but Steska said contractors from St. Louis and out of state already have expressed interest in the project. Steska said he hopes the increased competition will result in lower bids, as it did in September when Dumey Contractors of Benton, Mo., won the rough grading contract out of a field of 10 companies from throughout the Midwest with a base bid of $990,521.55.

The bid was more than 21 percent less than the district's estimate of $1.261 million. Half of the bids received were at or below budget.

Competition expected

"This is a very attractive project as far as size is concerned. We expect a lot of competition," Steska said. "At the same time, we do hope that a local bidder would be successful. We'd like to keep the project developed locally if at all possible."

To ensure the district remains within the $23 million budgeted for the project, the high school campus' design will include only what is most necessary for the future. An enlarged library and fine arts department are planned, and the cafeteria will be large enough to accommodate a closed-campus policy school officials plan to enact.

However, areas like an auditorium, football stadium and concession stands will be planned for, but they won't be included in the original bids.

The district will cover the cost of the project using $18 million in bonds sold last spring to finance the project, about $1.5 million in interest proceeds from the bonds, and money from the district's capital projects fund. Steska said organizations like the reorganized Cape Girardeau Public Schools Foundation and other community groups and corporate donors could finance special projects at the school.

Once the new school opens it will house ninth through 12th grades, and grades will be reconfigured in every building. All elementary schools will house kindergarten through fourth grades, and fifth and sixth grade classes will move into the current Central Junior High School. Seventh- and eighth-graders will be housed at the existing Central High School.

The aging Louis J. Schultz School is scheduled to close when the new high school opens.