As the current No. 1 high school in West Virginia — so recognized last year by U.S. News and World Report — Morgantown High School is long accustomed to seeing its name in lights.
Now, the school’s MHS Foundation wants to see that translated to the now-dilapidated and closed-off auditorium that over the generations had its boards trod by Emmy-winning comedic actor Don Knotts and other students of note.
Members of the foundation had a walk-on during last week’s Monongalia County Board of Education to meet to formally announce a $4 million fundraising campaign for the performance space known as “A Stage of Excellence” — which it hopes could be jump-started by a $2 million matching outlay by the BOE.
“There’s no reason it can’t be used by the community,” foundation treasurer Mark J. Nesselroad told board members.
After all, he said, that was the hope of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who dedicated the space in 1940.
The auditorium, she decreed on that stage, on that day 84 years ago, should serve “not only as a student center, but as a meeting place for all members of the community.”
Besides providing the opportunity for a venue to again engage a college town that already fosters the arts, there’s also a bottom line for BOE, Nesselroad said.
In the 18 years the auditorium has sat vacant, the treasurer said, the district has ponied up more than $300,000, counting all the related costs, to rent the Metropolitan Theatre on High School for its theatrical productions and other events.
The auditorium, Nesselroad said, would be a natural for Morgantown High’s annual Mohigan Idol talent show, a district-wide event featuring students from all grades that raises money for WVU Medicine Children’s.
In its current state, the auditorium, he said, simply isn’t safe.
Lighting is inoperable, he said, with no real catwalk in place to bring new rigging for a concert or play.
Seats are broken and flooring is frayed, making for a tripping hazard.
More importantly, the place isn’t ADA compliant, he said.
Restrooms, or the lack of adequate numbers of them, are also a practical consideration, board member Nancy Walker said.
Proposed plans call for the installation of new facilities outfitted with that measure, said Ryan Hess, an architect with the Mills Group, the architectural firm and historical renovation boosters the foundation wants to use for the do-over.
Hess said any undertaking would be done with a nod to Morgantown High and the South Park historic district that’s home to the school.
It opened at its address on Wilson Avenue in 1927.
By state code, the school board, President Ron Lytle said, couldn’t advance the money for the campaign during the evening.
Instead, the request will have to be formally placed on the agenda as an action item during the next board meeting, which is March 13 at its central offices in Sabraton.
An official vote on the request could be taken then, he said.
The MHS Foundation is the nonprofit fundraising arm for the school.
It helps purchase teaching materials and played a big role in the refurbishing of Pony Lewis Field and its press box and related facilities in the early 2000s.
Most recently, the foundation bankrolled the republishing of a well-received biography on graduate Tom Bennett, who died in Vietnam and was posthumously recognized with the Medal of Honor for his bravery as a combat medic.
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