After more than two years of planning, fundraising, and waiting, Murrumburrah High School is just weeks away from opening its brand new covered basketball courts a facility that will benefit not only students but the wider community as well. Principal Dale Rands said the project had been a long time coming, with numerous challenges and delays along the way.
“It’s taken about two and a half years because initially we were going to fund it through the school funds, but the price of metal and everything just kept going up post-COVID,” Mr Rands explained. “So I then approached the Kruger Trust, our local community trust, and they put in $100,000 as well. “Then the Department put a hold on all major infrastructure projects that were school or community funded, and we just had to wait our turn. They were only doing a few each year, so it’s taken two years.”
Eventually, construction was able to begin, though the rising cost of materials meant the final price tag was higher than expected.
“Finally, they built it and had to come up with extra costs because prices of everything have gone up in two years,” he said. “We didn’t have to cover anything else though we put in our original money, Kruger Trust put theirs in, and the Department of Education covered the shortfall.”
The finishing touches are now being applied, including drainage work, pressure-cleaning the surface, and re-marking the court lines. “Then we’re good to go,” Mr Rands said.
The addition of the covered courts will make a significant difference to school life, particularly given the challenging weather patterns of recent years.
“Since the last drought, which finished in 2019, we’ve had two or three years of just constant rain and we lost more than half our sports days,” Mr Rands said. “We’ve only got the hall, so the kids were getting really bored with it.
“It always tends to rain on a Wednesday just lucky like that,” he joked. “So now we can have some kids go to the hall and some kids go to the outdoor area. It gives us a second option, plus it helps with a couple of other local town sports. Hopefully the rain will have less impact than it used to.”
The timing of the project couldn’t be better, with basketball now ranked among the fastest-growing sports in Australia. “That court is also a community use facility,” Mr Rands explained. “We’ve got signs up there saying ‘share our space’ because we don’t have a fence. That basketball court actually gets used most weekends by little kids and their parents, and people just taking shots. Some of the local guys even have mini games on the weekends.
“There’s always somebody there playing a game, and now it’s undercover, I’m sure it’ll get used a lot more which is good.”
The new roof will also mean the court can be used year-round, free from frost in winter, heavy rain in spring, and scorching heat in summer. “During winter it’s covered in frost, then it gets wet, and in summer it’s 40 degrees and too hot,” Mr Rands said. “Now that eliminates all that, and it gives our PE teachers a lot more options as well.”
After years of waiting, he said the community could finally look forward to enjoying the new space. “I’m just glad it’s finally done, apart from the line marking,” he said.
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