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SCHOOLS
Students work on Keith-Albee stage floor
Billy McGhee, left, and Seth May cut wood as they and other students from Collins Career Center make repairs on the stage floor of the Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010, in Huntington.
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HUNTINGTON -- More than two dozen Collins Career Center students were busy outside the classroom on Friday to help make repairs and clean up the Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center in downtown Huntington.
Twenty-seven students from the vocational school at Getaway, Ohio, replaced boards on the stage floor and did cleanup work to get the building ready for a production of "Cats" scheduled Feb. 8 and 9, said Bob Edmunds, a former Marshall University professor helping out at the Keith-Albee.
"They need 15 hours of community service before they can graduate," said Matt Parnell, a carpentry instructor at the vocational school. "We came over before they had the premiere of 'We Are Marshall.' They've been sanding the floor, replacing some boards in the stage and vacuuming."
The students are from the carpentry class and the building maintenance class at Collins, Parnell said.
"It's good training," he said. "They get hands-on experience in a job setting. It's real-world experience. We try to do something like this every year. We're looking into building a Habitat for Humanity House."
The students have done projects like remodeling the sub-station office for the Lawrence County Sheriff's Department in Rome Township and built a garage onto a building in the past few years.
"We've done other things before, but nothing this big," said Zach Cremeans, a South Point High School senior working at the Keith-Albee on Friday. "I have over 100 hours of community service. It's awesome to be involved in a project like this. This is a piece of history."
Freddie Adkins, a Fairland High School senior, said the work gets him out of the classroom and gives hands-on experience. "It's better than sitting in a classroom all day," he said.
