THOMASVILLE – The Thomasville City Schools invites parents, students and community leaders to a special groundbreaking ceremony at Veterans Memorial Stadium on Thursday, Sept. 21 for Thomasville City Middle and High School.

Fred Rayfield, interim superintendent of Thomasville City Schools, talked about the planned renovation work that will revitalize the Thomasville City Schools’ community.

“It’s a $53 million project that affects grades 6-12 and the fieldhouse. It’ll be a brand new fieldhouse and a lot of the renovations to some of the older buildings and additions. It’ll be a tremendous project for the community to revitalize the historic buildings there that now serve grades 6-12 and the Scholar’s Academy,” said Rayfield.

“We’re pretty excited about finally getting the project moving. We’ve got some on-site work, demolition work going on. Everybody in our school community is ready, even though they were sad to see the gym start to come down this week, they’re excited about what’s going to replace it.”

The ceremony will take place at 4 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Stadium, located at 701 East Jackson Street. The renovations are projected to take 23 months to complete. The first phase starts with the new fieldhouse with the expectation of moving the football team into their new home before next season.

“Knowing the architectural firm and construction folks that are involved, I know that the community will be very proud of the finished product,” Rayfield said. “MacIntyre Park Middle School will still exist. It is one of the newer buildings, but we have those other buildings that serve for some middle school classes. We have Scholar’s 6-12. It’s really going to be a revitalization of those older buildings.

“Right now, if you’re an administrator and you need to hit all three of those spots from a supervision or visibility standpoint, it becomes very cumbersome. Once we get all of this done, from a day-to-day management standpoint, hopefully things will be much better. Our folks can handle much more visible presence without having to get on a golf cart and ride across the street.”