Original Article Link: http://www.emporiagazette.com/education/usd/252/article_3b484957-d3fc-5397-9562-a22d4cd5f8db.html
By Jessie Wagoner jessie@emporia.com Sep 17, 2014
Olpe Elementary School students celebrated the completion of a new playground on Tuesday morning. Students helped cut the ribbon and dedicate the playground before enjoying lunch and extra play time.
“Our playground is awesome,” Braydon Fowler, third grader, said. “It’s really awesome.”
The playground was made possible through a grant from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. KDHE provided half of the funds and the school board provided the rest.
“This is a culmination of a lot of efforts put together,” Mike Argabright, USD 252 superintendent, said. “This is about a $80,000-project that we are standing on.”
The result of that hard work is a new playground with a soft and safe surface. Children can run, jump and play on the soft surface without worry of injury. As an added bonus, the soft surface is also good for the environment.
“You are sitting and standing on recycled Kansas tires,” Argabright said.
The 8,500 square foot playground consists of 56,900 pounds of recycled rubber. Ecoturf Surfacing installed the playground in three phases. The first phase consists of installing the sub-base and drainage, then buffing the rubber. The final phase is the installation of the colored top coat. The sub-base is made from recycled semitrailer and case loader tires. The top layer is made from recycled car tires.
Mia Kingsley, fourth grader, pointed out a benefit of the new playground — that no water pools on the playground. Rain water drains quickly off the surface meaning less mess.
“I think the best part is that we don’t have to have indoor recess as much,” Kingsley said. “The water just drains off.”
The playground improvement was long-awaited and warmly welcomed by the school and the Olpe community as a whole.
“Not only is this a fantastic school improvement, it is a community improvement,” Argabright said. “If you drive by here on the weekends or in the evenings you see kids out here and that is pretty special.”