A DREAM BECOMES REALITY DEL SUR OPENS NEW GYMNASIUM.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - The $2.7 million Del Sur School gymnasium, long sought by students, parents and staff, was dedicated Friday in an assembly featuring performances by the school band and cheerleading squad.

Physical education students at the 50-year-old school will no longer have to go indoors or cancel games because of inclement weather.

``It feels wonderful,'' said Gail Strong, a parent who helped decorate the gym with balloons and bunting in black, blue and yellow. ``For all those years of seeing what PE teachers have gone through, what the kids went through, now to have this is so wonderful.''

The building also features a music room and stage for performances, a community room, and an activity room with one wall lined with a full-length mirror for dance and cheerleading students.

During the assembly, board members Gwen Farrell and Christine LeBeau participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and Superintendent Allan Sacks made two unsuccessful attempts at making a basket.

A special decorative touch is a wooden sign carved by two teachers from a mulberry tree that was removed to make way for the gym. Using a router and hand tools, teachers Mike Mann and Dan Chronis crafted the sign reading ``Dragons,'' for the school mascot.

The school at 90th Street West and Avenue H has 630 students in grades kindergarten to eighth grade. The district's two other middle schools, Hillview and Joe Walker, have gyms.

Del Sur parents fought for a gym for more than two decades. District officials had looked at building one several years ago but at the time could not afford it, trustees said.

In November 1998, the district gained the two-thirds approval needed to extend a school construction bond tax for 18 years and raise an additional $14.7 million.

Under Measure Y, homeowners will pay the same amount they already are billed - about $30 on a house assessed at $100,000 - but for 18 years beyond 2008, when the current bond tax is set to expire.

The gym will boost the school's physical education program, which previously took place outdoors. Students had used a double-wide portable building during bad weather and for weight training.

Before that, they would be forced to sit in an empty classroom or the cafeteria, Strong said. ``Kids were shoved from place to place. There was nowhere for them to go,'' Strong said.

Principal Robert Hughes said he was excited to be able to use the gym for school functions. He noted that sports events, like basketball and volleyball games, had been held outside, where it can get ``mighty cold and windy and hot.''

``We just had to make do,'' Hughes said. ``A lot of times, if we were competing against other schools, we canceled games.''

Strong said the school sent a thank-you card to the board that said, ``This was a dream deferred that has now become reality.''

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4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color in AV edition only) Westside Union School District board members Gwendolyn Farrell, left, and Christine LeBeau cut the ribbon during dedication ceremonies to open the new Del Sur school gymnasium as Del Sur mascot Mr. Dragon watches.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer

(2 -- color in AV edition only) Westside Union School District Superintendent Allan Sacks shoots the first basket in the new Del Sur gymnasium.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff PHotographer

(3 -- 4 -- ran in AV edition only) Music teacher Sharon Kennedy, above, leads the Del Sur band in ``Galactic Episode'' to celebrate the opening of the school's new gym. At left, students and teachers leave the gym following the ceremonies.