Although the facility is yet to reopen after $270,000 remediation, KFEE looks toward a $4 million expanded, community-wide future
The KJHS auditorium, long closed due to disrepair and asbestos, is still more than 90 days away from reopening, but that is not stopping the Kosciusko Foundation for Education Excellence (KFEE) from planning a big future for the facility.
Dr. Tim Alford, along with other members of the KFEE, told the Kosciusko School Board Monday night that their group is willing to take on the goal of raising a total of $4 million to make the KJHS auditorium a state-of-the-art arts center within the next two to five years.
That price tag includes the $270,000 the district will have already spent when the facility reopens near the end of this year. At the time it reopens, asbestos will have been removed, the roof will have been repaired and the interior repainted by contractors. District maintenance personnel will have also completed work on the carpets, seats and lighting.
While the district’s Phase I project will get the doors open for the auditorium to see use by the district again, the KFEE believes that with a greater investment, the facility could become and area showpiece, able to host events and shows for the larger regional community.
The KFEE group has already gathered information from focus groups and hired an architect to develop renderings of an upgraded facility that could become a regional draw.
“It needs to be about community. It needs to be multi-purpose,” Alford told the board.
The group is suggesting the upgraded auditorium be renamed the Skipworth Performing Arts Center, after the man Alford said is an historic local figure with strong connections to the local arts scene.
Alford told how Skipworth started a local band in the 1930s, begging for instruments during the depression. By 1934, the band was winning prizes.
“He established the tradition of excellence in that band and in our community,” Alford said, adding that Skipworth even went to the Tipton Street School to encourage students there to take up playing musical instruments.
“He had a profound influence on people’s lives here,” he said, noting that having a strong personal story to tell is helpful in raising funds for projects like this one. “This would be a tribute and conveys a community idea and not just one about the school district.”
That does not mean raising the funds necessary will be easy, though.
“It’s going to take all hands on deck. The interest level is very high and there are people that really want to help,” Alford told the board, noting that Holmes Community College has expressed some interest in possibly utilizing the facility and Rep. Jason White has said he will do what he can to garner state funding to support the effort.
The upgraded facility would likely see an enlarged lobby area for larger groups to convene by extending the building out into the current parking area a bit. Seats in the facility would likely be reduced slightly to accommodate more leg room and wider aisles. The current orchestra pit could be temporarily or permanently covered to allow for the stage front to be moved closer to the audience.
What would not change is the overall acoustic quality of the facility, which those involved said are hard to find in more recently built auditoriums.
“The music aspect and the acoustic aspect.... you won’t find anything built like this new,” said KFEE member Rachel Hawkins.
“The bones of this building are excellent,” agreed Alford. “ If we build it, they will come. There’s noplace liek this in central Mississippi. We’ve got to think big.”
Koscuisko Mayor Jimmy Cockroft agreed, telling the board that the various community development projects in town — including the auditorium, the Native American Museum and The Strand — shouldn’t be considered as being in competition with one another.
“Don’t let that stop you from doing something like this. We need the museum, we need this, we need The Strand,” he said. “We need to pick up our game a little bit.”
You can learn more about the KFEE’s efforts to upgrade the KJHS auditorium — and donate to the effort — by going to visiting www.kfeems.org/projects.
