MORGANTOWN – Mike Oliverio and Joey Garcia were ready for their big number Tuesday night.
The two West Virginia senators waited in the wings during that evening’s meeting of the Monongalia County Board of Education – and when it was time, they hit their marks.
And presented a check for $40,000 to the “Stage of Excellence” auditorium renovation campaign for Oliverio’s alma mater of Morgantown High School.
The outlay comes as a grant offering through the Senate Education Committee, Oliverio said.
Both he and Garcia represent north-central West Virginia in Charleston.
“I don’t know what Joey’s gonna have me do about Fairmont Senior,” Oliverio joked, referencing his fellow lawmaker’s old high school in Marion County.
“We’re just happy to be able to support MHS and the project,” Garcia said.
A project, it is.
The “Stage of Excellence” campaign launched by the MHS Foundation is a $4 million-plus effort to restore the auditorium, which has fallen into ill repair over the years and is now only used sparingly.
It’s a matching affair. Mon Schools agreed to kick in $2 million – after the foundation raised that same amount.
Time for a curtain call, Mark J. Nesselroad said.
“We are happy to report we have the $2 million that we have committed to raise,” the foundation’s treasurer reported to the board. “So on our end, we are ready to go.”
Well, almost.
The “plus” part attached to the $4 million is due to rising construction costs and new estimates, Nesselroad said.
Said projections are now resetting the price tag to $4.4 million – or $400,000 in additional dollars – that the foundation is now asking of the district, to go with the original agreement.
ON WITH THE SHOW …
Mike Kelly, the longtime BOE incumbent, said past boards and this one, also, have been advocates for the arts with “nothing but good intentions” for the project.
“It’s just gonna be the money side,” he said of the new request, “and how we make it all fit.”
When then-First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt walked across the auditorium stage in 1940 to dedicate it as part of a Works Progress Administration project, war clouds were layering in Europe and the attack on Pearl Harbor was looming.
She had high hopes for the high school auditorium: “A meeting place for all members of the community to discuss the important problems of government,” as she decreed on that evening 86 years ago.
It has a storied history as an entertainment venue.
Don Knotts, (Class of 1942) who went on to earn five Emmys for his role as bumbling Barney Fife on “The Andy Griffith Show,” the landmark TV sitcom of the 1960s, began working his craft on that stage.
Trevor Nichols, the Broadway and West End star, performed his first musicals there. He’s a member of Morgantown High’s Class of 2001.
Steve Farmer, a Charleston attorney and 1975 MHS graduate, is a board member of the Hazel Ruby McQuain Charitable Trust, the outreach agency that made a gift of $1.3 million to the foundation for the project.
In turn, Farmer asked the BOE to also commit to a maintenance agreement that would ensure upkeep of the auditorium for future generations.
When the auditorium is fully refurbished with contemporary seating, lighting and full ADA compliance, it will again be the community center that Mrs. Roosevelt envisioned, he said.
And a place of which Mrs. McQuain – known for her altruism across the region – would surely approve, he added.
“Hazel would want us to support this project,” Farmer said. “Hazel would also expect the county who owns the asset to commit to ongoing maintenance – which we can all do together.”
BREAK A LEG (NOT THE BANK ACCOUNT)
Over the years, Morgantown High has held events at the Metropolitan Theatre as a stand-in for the auditorium. It costs the district around $16,000 a year to rent the downtown venue.
MHS Principal Paul Mihalko said he appreciates the BOE’s commitment to the project and that he’d like to see all that money come home and back into the district’s coffers.
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful for us to have the spring concert or awards ceremony back in the school?” the principal asked.
“We are successful in so many things,” Mihalko said, “and I’d like to be able to say we have the best auditorium for our students – and for what we can do for the community.”
