South Hamilton superintendent Mike Rogers said late last week that he was so elated about the passage of the recent school bond election that my feet didn't hit the floor for three days.

Rogers beams when speaking of the cooperation among staff members and parents who studied building needs in the district starting last spring. Eventually, over 300 hours of time spent by that committee resulted in the referendum to improve school facilities.

That referendum was approved by 72% of South Hamilton voters in the special election held December 2.

The $5 million plan will put a major addition on the elementary school and a smaller addition to themiddle school/high school building. One of the highlights of the new plan will be that the school's fifth and sixth-graders will be relocated to a more appropriate setting at the elementary school. We're going to free up five rooms in this building by moving out the grades five and six, Rogers points out. So some neat things will be happening that we don't have the room for now.

In addition, 21 new classrooms will be added within new and existing spaces at the elementary school and a multi-purpose room will be added.Renovation work to the middle school/high school was also included in the referendum.

According to Rogers, the board can decide to sell bonds in either January or March, 1998. Architects are already at work on the final design of the new plan, which should be finalized by late March.

Rogers anticipates that the board of education will approve the plan at their March meeting and send out bid specifications at that time. Contractors will have until May to finalize their bids before they are returned to the board for their consideration.

In the best scenario, the board will be able to decide in Mayh which contractor gets the bid. By late June or early July we could be working, Rogers summarizes, emphasizing that this is a very rough time line. If everything goes very well, the new elementary addition could be ready for use in the fall of 1999, Rogers said.

There is some preliminary work being done at the building site already, the superintendent reported. Soil samples are being taken and tests made to be sure where underground electrical wiring and plumbing lines are laid.

What we want to do is build a building that people thirty years from now will be as proud of as they are of this one, Rogers says of his goal for the building project. The district's middle school/high school building was completed in 1968.

But won't such a major undertaking be an awful lot of extra work for the school board and administrators? Yes it will, answers Rogers, who is in his second year as superintendent at South Hamilton. But it sure will be fun!