SerpApi.Org
MOUNT STERLING — Multi-million-dollar renovations at Brown County High School are expected to be completed by the time the school year starts.
Work on the school's sports fields and parking lot will begin during the 2026-2027 school year, according to Lan Eberle, superintendent for Brown County Community Unit School District No. 1.
"This fall, they're working on the girls softball field and the boys baseball field, and those should be done before winter so we can play on those in the spring," Eberle said. "Now, the football field and track will be a project that'll start in the spring of ’27 and hopefully be done by the time school starts in the fall of ’27."
Work on the front entrance to the high school, which has about 220 students, is one of the last steps in finishing construction that started in 2024. Some classrooms also are being finished in the weeks up to the start of the new school year, Eberle said.
Once school starts back up in August, multiple sports fields will be the target of improvements. The district will add a six-lane, all-weather track; add synthetic turf to the football field; turf the softball field; add synthetic turf to the baseball field; and add a new parking lot.
The sports projects will take place during the football and baseball teams' off seasons.
The softball team's field will be turfed during its season; as a result, the district has worked out an agreement with Mount Sterling Park District to let the team use a field in town, Eberle said.
"That's the only athletic group that's going to be impacted or misplaced during the during the school year, is our our junior high girls softball," he said.
The fields will be able to be used by the community after they're completed, Eberle said.
"We're going to work with the community, as well, and we're going to open this up to, you know, if people want to walk in the evening on the track, or if the (YMCA) wants to use the the turf field for some some flag football or some programs like that, we're going to be open to that," he said.
The parking lot will be repaved and expanded for "events, students and staff." The projects will total a little more than $5 million, Eberle said.
Since renovations began in 2024, the school has been refreshed and enlarged as part of a $26 million project, including about $4.8 million donated by Dot Foods and Tracy Family Foundation.
"We really needed to address some safety concerns," Eberle said. "We had a lot of asbestos in the building, and all of that's been abated and taken care of. We had some water issues and some electrical issues, and all of those concerns in the renovation of the high school have been dealt with."
The school's addition — which houses a new band room, weight room and classrooms, and serves as a tornado shelter — used to be a simple plot of grass, Eberle said.
"Literally everything is new in the high school," he said. "I feel bad for, two years ago, our sophomores didn't get to experience any of the new school, and they graduated, and now juniors have graduated, so finally we have a class that has been through this entire renovation that are seeing the benefits."
Separately, the gymnasium has been repainted and updated with a new scoreboard and a retractable U.S. flag in the rafters.
"That addition was done first," Eberle said. "We moved teachers in, and then we started work in other classrooms in the area, completely renovating the existing high school. With those teachers moving out of what was the existing high school, we were able to go in and renovate in phases."
Eberle, whose been with the district for six years and retires in June, said he's excited for the students who will get to experience the finished renovations.
"When the students come back here in ... early August, they're going to see everything just sparkling, brand new," Eberle said.
Brown County Middle School principal Alex Ebbing will take over as superintendent after Eberle's retirement.
