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After 12 months of construction and about 18 more months to go, staff and students at Luverne Middle-High School are familiar with hardhat-clad workers roaming the halls.
One worker, though, gets more attention than the others. “There is always someone saying, ‘Hi,’” said Jim Loose, an equipment operator with Gil Haugen Construction.
Loose is an LHS Class of 1978 graduate and lives in Luverne.
He also sees one or more of his six stepgrandchildren at the job site. “I hear ‘Hi, Grandpa’ almost every day,” he said. “That’s kind of cool.”
He’s worked for Sioux Falls-based Gil Haugen Construction for 27 years, since 1993, which means he was on the job for the 1999 opening of the Luverne Elementary School.
The grandkids weren’t old enough to be in school back then, but 20 years later, he’s working to update the middle-high school and the youngsters are taking notice.
Senior Justice Brandt and seventh-grader Morgan McTigue often cut their visit with friends short to say ‘hi’ to Loose.
His other four stepgrandchildren are at the elementary school, but they occasionally see him operate the telehandler between the two schools.
Kadia Brandt and Joshua Brandt are second-graders and Jaxson McTigue and Destiny Brandt are third-graders.
Destiny recently wrote her grandfather a note with some misspellings that read, “Thank you for helping as bilding stuf in the school.”
The pencil-on-paper note hangs on the refrigerator in his and his wife, Sandy’s, home in Luverne. “I thought that’s pretty cute,” he said.
Loose said he expects to be at the school site through June 2021, when construction is expected to be finished.
He’s found the familiarity with the school’s layout an asset as he and his co-workers demolished the former auditorium, band and choir rooms and rebuilt the spaces into new classrooms.
However, one element of the school construction did surprise him.
“I never knew there were tunnels under the hallways,” Loose said.
Those tunnels contained various utility lines but they’re no longer safe for use. The new utilities are now routed through the main floors and walls of the building.
“It was time for an update,” Loose said.
Last week workers began demolishing the superintendent’s office and classrooms on the first floor of the west wing.
In the remodel, the superintendent’s office will expand in the same location on the south side, but the new middle-high school offices will relocate next to the superintendent.
Across the hall, where classrooms were originally located, the new counselor suites and a portion of the new kitchen will be built.
The west wing’s second floor houses finished remodeled classrooms.
The west wing will flow into the new commons and performing arts center, which will connect the elementary to the middle-high school building.
Construction on the new additions will resume this spring.