Evans welders help Lakeside boosters
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Evans High School welding student Ricky Powell attaches security windows to the concession stand at Lakeside's Panther Stadium.
Photo by Jim Blaylock
When some Lakeside Panthers needed help, some Evans Knights rode to the rescue.
The Evans students, under the direction of metals program instructor Elvin Skidmore, have designed, built, painted and installed metal shutters for a concession stand at Lakeside's football stadium.
Marc Balcer, vice president of the Lakeside Band Boosters, which operates the concession stand, helped with the installation on the two service windows Thursday morning.
"The concession stand has been broken into five times that I know of. The last one resulted in more damage than the others, so we had to do something stringent," Balcer said. "That's when we called Evans High School's welding class. We had to get it where they really couldn't get in."
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It took the students about a month to design, order the materials and build the shutters.
"We knew we wanted something that would be lightweight but sturdy, so we had to come up with a way to attach the metal mesh to a frame. Then we had to build our own heavy-duty hinges," Skidmore said.
Evans High is the only high school in the county with a welding program.
Though the school's welding classes have made signs for elementary and middle schools, this is the first time they've done a project of this importance, particularly for a cross-town rival.
Evans student Robert Paist holds the plans for the burglar bars that he helped make.
Photo by Jim Blaylock
"We said we were going to paint a big EHS on it, but you know how that goes," senior Josh Ball said.
Others working on the project were seniors Ricky Powell and Robert Paist, who have taken welding for two years, and senior Derek Van Soest, who has studied welding for the past four years.
"They will have the satisfaction of doing a job well done," Skidmore said. "It is very satisfying to walk by somewhere down the road and say, 'We built those."'