La Grande Pride
www.lagrandesd.org • September 2019
NEW LOOK, NEW COACHES
FACILITIES
continued from page 6
school, the Middle school, Green-
wood and Island City. These
schools will have a fresh look with
low-maintenance landscaping and
will add more visibility around the
buildings.
In addition to this, there are
other small projects like a reno-
vation to the break room at the
district offi ce and cleaning out
the records room and re-storing
the records in durable plastic
totes. The maintenance crew also
performed their routine summer
cleaning duties, refi nishing gyms,
shampooing carpets, waxing tile,
and washing windows.
Waite oversees the hard-work-
ing maintenance crew, including
Tim Jordan, who has been work-
ing for the district for the past 28
years, Adam Slippy (3 years), Brad
Sunderman (1 year), new mainte-
nance supervisor Tom Swenson (7
months), new hire Joe Clausen (3
months) and warehouse manager
Andy Hibbert (5 years), who helps
the maintenance crew quite a bit.
Other noteworthy projects
include the City of La Grande’s
Safe Route to Schools grant that
has enabled them to pour a new
sidewalk on H Avenue from Cedar
Street to Sunset on the north side
of H Avenue.
“This basically connects our new
sidewalk when we built Central up
to Sunset,” Waite said.
In conjunction with that im-
provement, the district asked them
to pour sidewalk down to the high
school’s track facility and bleach-
ers all the way to the tennis facil-
ity and make it ADA accessible.
This used to be a gravel path that
would get wet and muddy at times,
so this makes it much more use-
able.
7
Fall Sports Update
By Trish Yerges
Joseph Waite
Adam Slippy
Tim Jordan
Brad Sunderman
Tom Swenson
Joe Clausen
The district also wants to thank
Mike Becker Construction, Chal-
lis Construction and R D Mac who
have donated signifi cant materials
and equipment to build a sensory
classroom at Central Elementary.
They built a retaining wall and
playground area for sensory activi-
ties for autistic and special needs
students. That playground is
located off the kindergarten wing
at Central school and allows these
students to enjoy activities that
cater to their mobility issues and
need for tactile engagement.
“That’s a good improvement, and
we want to recognize the contribu-
tions of those three companies,”
said Waite.
La Grande School District’s ath-
letic director Darren Goodman is
in his second year with the district,
and he has an exciting lineup of
team games to tell us about and a
new look for the football team.
Last year the football team
ranked seventh, and they have put
in a busy summer of practice.
“We’re returning a lot of seniors
this year, and we’re having record
numbers of athletes that want to
play. We are anticipating at least
15 freshmen this year, so if that
happens, we’ll be in good shape,”
Goodman said.
With the increased number of
athletes, the team doesn’t have
enough helmets, so Goodman said
he will purchase more for the new
players.
“We have kind of a new look this
year,” he said. “Our helmets are a
different color blue, and we have
new uniforms. It should be a fun
year.”
The football home opener is with
the Pendleton High School Bucka-
roos on Sept. 6 at home. Pendleton
was one of only two losses last year
in regular season, so Goodman is
hoping to give them a better game
this year.
The girls’ and boys’ soccer teams
have new coaches this year. The
new coach for girls’ soccer is Sam
Brown, who used to be the girls’
varsity coach years ago, and he’s
been coaching junior varsity. Now
he is going to be the varsity coach
this year. The girls’ soccer team
starts their season on Sept. 5 at 4
p.m. against Pendleton at Eastern
Oregon University.
Sid Rangel is the new coach for
the boys’ soccer team. He used
to be the junior varsity coach last
year and a teacher here on campus.
The boys’ soccer opens the season
on August 30 at 4 p.m. against
Wood River High School at the LG
Middle School.
“The volleyball team graduated
only one senior last year, and they
qualifi ed for state so we’re look-
ing forward to a good year,” Good-
man said. “We kick off our season
on Saturday, August 25 with the
Hanna Cashell Memorial Tourna-
ment held at our gym on campus.”
Cross country teams both quali-
fi ed for state last year, and the
girls won the GOL. La Grande
has some good young runners, and
Goodman is excited for the season.
The team has been working hard
all summer for coach Alma Crow.
“We have a good group coming
back this year,” said Goodman.
“Volleyball and football are senior
heavy teams, and we’re excited to
see what they can do. For the girls’
and boys’ soccer teams, we hired
some good new coaches. We’re
continuing the success that those
programs have had. That’s the
goal, and we’re excited about it.”