AMHERST — The weight room at Amherst-Pelham Regional High School is getting some updates, thanks to a student fundraising initiative.
“For years now the high school weight room has lacked basic equipment that is needed,” said Chris Ehorn Jr., head football coach.
He pointed to dumbbells as an issue. “Not only were they really old,” he said. “We were missing a bunch — there was no 20 or 25 (pound) dumbbells. For a high school student, that’s probably the main one they would use.”
About 20 student-athletes from various sports came together to fundraise for better equipment, Ehorn said.
So far, they’ve gotten more than $10,000 from the Amherst Hurricanes Booster, the Rotary Club of Amherst, the school and their GoFundMe page.
They’ve already been able to put some of the money toward updating the weight room with new dumbbells and Olympic barbells, Ehorn said. And over spring break, students gave the room a fresh coat of maroon and gray paint.
Still, the updating project is on-going.
“Their goal is to have the best high school weight room around. It’s going to be a step by step process,” Ehorn said, adding, “I’m really proud of the students taking upon themselves.”
Amherst Regional High School’s JETS Engineering Club won top prizes at the Tests of Engineering, Aptitude, Mathematics and Science (TEAMS) competition this spring.
The one-day competition tests high school students on engineering, math and science with a written exam, a design and build challenge and an essay the teams write before the competition. This year’s essay prompt was about artificial intelligence.
In total, 45 students competed on six teams, according to Patricia Blauner, ARHS physics teacher and a leader of the club. The 11th and 12th grade team placed first in the nation in their division, a level for open enrollment high schools with a senior class of 176 to 275 students, Blauner said. Both an 11th and 12th grade team and a 9th and 10th grade team from ARHS placed first in the state.
“I was really impressed with this year’s winning teams. They were extremely motivated and self-driven,” Blauner said in an email to the Gazette.
“Our students do well because they are academically well-prepared,” she said, “both in quantitative reasoning and in expository writing. But more importantly, they work well together.”
There is a national finals event next, but because of the time and financial commitment, the ARHS team does not compete in it, Blauner said.
Amherst and Pelham already have their middle and high schools in the same school district. Now, they’re considering adding their elementary schools into a regional district too.
With representatives from both towns, the Regional School District Planning Board has been looking at the issue since early 2018. At the group’s meeting on Friday morning, they are likely to take a vote on it, according to Peter Demling, the board’s chair. If they vote to continue to pursue it, the board and School Committees would create a regional agreement and then the issue would advance to the two towns for a vote, according to the board.
At a meeting last month, Amherst Town Council members worried it could interfere with their funding application sent to the state to fix elementary school buildings in Amherst. Demling said Pelham town officials have expressed their support with moving forward with regionalization.
Friday’s Regional School District Planning Board will take place at 10:30 a.m. in the Pelham Library.
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com.