THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 6, 1995 TAG: 9505060328
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CURRITUCK LENGTH: Long : 109 lines
Staley B. Powell can't talk much about his former civilian role as a supervisory nuclear engineering technician with the U.S. Navy. He's been sworn to secrecy.
But when it comes to his new job, the Moyock man can't keep quiet.
He'll tell you exactly what he hopes will happen while he oversees the construction of a $16.5 million high school in Barco as Currituck County's first public schools project manager.
Summed up: ``It's going to be very hard for this project to get out of control.''
That's important to taxpayers who will fund the most expensive county building in Currituck history.
It's on the minds of students and their parents, who will be affected by school shifts once the building next to the existing high school opens.
It also means a lot to elected officials, who suffered a loss of confidence from voters after past projects went over budget.
The position Powell accepted last month was created in response to sharp criticism for cost overruns on at least two previous projects - the Knotts Island Elementary School and W.T. Griggs Elementary School expansions.
``That's one of the main reasons I was hired - to provide daily on-site management,'' the 52-year-old Chesapeake, Va., native said.
Powell, who will earn $30,000 annually, has spent much of his first month going over blueprints and cabinets' worth of folders, making sure he understands each and every detail of the project.
Powell's technical experience and flexibility made him stand out among the four applicants for the job, said his boss, Skip Sanders, the schools' director of facilities.
``He just seemed to have the patience to run through the documents and make sure he understood what needed to be done,'' Sanders said.
He also is no stranger to Currituck County education, having put three children through its schools.
``Schools were a drawing card for us,'' he said. ``That was a reason we came down here.''
After years of living in the Great Bridge area, where Powell graduated from high school in 1960, he and his wife, Juanita, moved to the Baxter Estates community in Moyock. He retired in 1994.
``I found that the schools had retained the values of reading, writing and arithmetic,'' he said. ``The quality of teachers was such that they didn't put up with a whole lot of mess. They used discipline.''
Powell found this out firsthand, when one of his daughters, then in about ninth grade, got in trouble on the bus - for chewing gum.
People who grew up in rural Currituck might also remember Powell and his wife from the days when they put on school dances as a way to provide ``wholesome entertainment'' for county youth.
``We were old enough to know better, but we went into the disc jockey business,'' he said with a grin.
It's been years since the couple brought out the disco ball and strobe lights, but Powell said they still get requests for proms and reunions.
Right now, though, what's being requested of Powell is to get a high-quality school built on budget and in time for a grand opening in September 1996.
But if things go smoothly now, it will be the first time for this project.
After a $16 million bond was approved in the November 1993 elections, schools officials and an architect began designing a new high school.
Some $12 million was earmarked for the high school, with the remainder to be used for a new elementary school in Jarvisburg and expansions at other facilities.
However, the lowest construction bid in December 1994 was $3.7 million more than expected for the 159,455-square-foot facility. Cost-cutting sessions ensued, but then the prospective contractor lost its parent company and said it would do the project only for the original $15.7 million offer.
The school board decided not to sign the contract. The sale of bonds to pay for construction was delayed.
After soliciting for new bids last month, the board received a low offer that was $1.7 million less than the first - about the amount it expected to save with the revised plans.
Last week the board learned that no one had bid on a wastewater treatment plant for the new school. Another round of offers is expected.
The new high school is on the agenda for Monday's regular school board meeting at 7 p.m. at Currituck County High School's media center.
Both Powell and Sanders say they are anxious for a groundbreaking to meet the fall 1996 deadline.
``Every day that goes past now, that chance gets slimmer,'' Sanders said.
Unlike some schools built with input from administrators only, chief architect C. Michael Ross and the Board of Education took into account suggestions from students on up.
Powell believes that practice, which mirrors the military's Total Quality Management program, sets Currituck apart from other communities. It also serves as additional motivation.
``Every dollar they use on this project is part of my taxes,'' he said. ``So I have a vested interest, too.''
Ideas that originated with teachers and their pupils include peninsula-style seating in science labs and an outdoor commons area that can also be used as a classroom.
The new school will be among the most technologically advanced in the Albemarle.
Each classroom will be equipped with a telephone, computers and a media retrieval system that allows easier access to library materials.
``It's going to be something that the county hasn't seen in a school before,'' Powell said.
Sanders added emphatically: ``Something that the area hasn't seen.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by DREW C. WILSON, Staff
Skip Sanders, right, schools' director of facilities, sits with
Staley B. Powell, Currituck County's first public schools project
manager, atop plans for a new high school in Barco.
by CNB