When Powell High School’s track was put in, students and staff had only been in the building two years and the football field was still grass, not turf. Fifteen years later the track has begun to show its age and is due for a touchup. 

While installing new turf on the football field last year “we noticed there's some bad spots in there,” Support Services Coordinator Rob McCray said.

By the end of July the track will get three coats of black paint with orange exchange zones. The run-up lanes for the high jump and long jump pits as well as the pits themselves will be black.

After a decade and a half the track requires some maintenance but is not in total disrepair. Despite the track's age, the lanes only need to receive a top coat which makes the overall cost of the project much lower.

“The track itself is still adhesed really well, so it doesn't have to be removed, they can simply go over it with a top coat,” McCray said.  “So it's considerably cheaper than blading off that surface and then going in with the polymer material and then having to paint it.”

While the lanes of the track do not need more than a top coat, the run-up lanes and high jump pits will be resurfaced. 

Work has recently been done on the exchange zones which had to be repainted a couple of years ago due to changes made by the Wyoming High School Activities Association. 

A bid for $223,900 by Hellas Construction, out of Austin, Texas, was unanimously approved by the school board during a Feb. 12 meeting. The company has completed projects for Park County School District 1 in the past and installed the footballs field’s turf last year.

When the track was installed 15 years ago it was standard for a 3A high school track to have six lanes. Powell High School opted to include eight lanes, even though at the time the two additional lanes were not covered under major maintenance. Now an eight lane track is standard for a 3A school and the entire project can be paid for using major maintenance funds.

“One thing that I will say about our track is that it gets used year round, our P.E. classes if it’s 35 and sunny kids are outside even in January, February so this is not just a competition space it’s an instructional space for our kids throughout the year,” Superintendent Jay Curtis said.

The bidding process was carried out using the Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies.

“They submit bids annually both locally, regionally and nationally … it’s a consortium of 28 states that go out for purchasing to try and get basically bargaining power because it's such a large organization,” McCray said.