Students help in building concession stand

PARK HILLS – UniTec Career Center students will be able to drive through Park Hills Sports Complex and take credit for having a part in building the concession stand.

Students in Rob Stacy’s construction technology classes have been working to construct a new building which will house a concession stand, handicap-accessible restrooms and a storage area.

Stacy said it was a really great learning opportunity for his students. He said 80 percent of the students last year got a job in the construction field.

He said this particular project is letting the students learn construction, from the ground up.

Stacy said the students poured the foundation, dug and poured the footings. They will install the roof, the shingles, windows, the metal doors, and set the trusses.

The electricity class at UniTec will do some of the wiring.

“We’re doing the whole building basically,” he said.

He said if they are going into the construction field, they are going to do everything they are doing with the concession stand project.

“Everything they are learning here from the concrete to the shingles to the drywall will help them become more employable,” he said.

Nick Pothetos, a Farmington junior, said he has done various construction-type projects in the past but nothing this big. He said some of the work he has done before but some it was new to him like doing the concrete.

The students are first and second-year students from all of the local school districts. The second-year students serve as the foremen while Stacy acts as the project supervisor.

“The good thing about it is it teaches kids to work together,” he said.

Over the years, Stacy’s students have completed a number of projects in the community including the recent addition to the Desloge Baptist Church. The school provides the labor for free. The materials for the project were purchased with the city’s parks and storm water tax monies.