Restoration of DHS West End is Stunning

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Du Quoin High School architect Paul Lunsford has been on site almost daily viewing the progression of his work.

A quick tour unveils what will be one of the most beautiful auditoriums in Southern Illinois with a theater company being hired to install acoustically correct sound as well stage, ceiling and production lighting. An old classroom and office have been taken out and a new control room is being installed at the rear of the auditorium.

Even the new stage curtain will be controlled electronically.

The band room is getting all new flooring, new risers and is acoustically correct. A state-of-the-art music practice room will allow music students to see on a computerized monitoring system what their music not only sounds like--but looks like.

Taking the temporary wall down in Anders gymnasium will reveal a towering new set of east end locker rooms that will connect to the existing mezzanine just inside the doors with seating both on top and in front of that structure. All told, the new gym will seat nearly 2,000--enough seating to support a sectional basketball tournament, yet intimate enough where fans can easily talk to each other.

Work in the auditorium and band room should be largely completed by May. A new gymnasium floor will complete that part of the restoration over the summer.

Excavation of the old Big "S" Transport site is underway. Current work involves taking out a 24 x 100 foot basement with very thick walls that was once part of the Midwest Dairy operation.

Bids on the main two-story academic building are due in the district by March 16.

There is even method to the madness of installing a urinal in the new girls' locker room on the east side of Anders Gymnasium at the Du Quoin High School.

The answer is not only simple, but visionary as far as design is concerned.

"I know we'll get criticism," says architect Paul Lunsford.

But, the design actually shows very clear thinking. While the room will be used day in and day out as a girls' locker room it will also have some unisex athletic utility during multi-team tournaments. Lunsford said new and existing locker rooms will afford up to six individual teams of either sex their own housing during tournaments.