Republic High School ag students build pole barn on campus

Building will double as storage facility, event venue
 
There is a new structure on campus at Republic High School. A 3,200 square-foot pole barn, the work of
the students in the Republic Ag Department, now stands just east of the main school building. The
students completed the barn on Thursday, May 13; it served as the venue for the FFA’s fish fry on
Friday, May 14.
David Mareth, ag instructor at Republic High School, said the barn was “100-percent” built by the
students. The 15 students in the construction class took the lead on the project, he said, but all of the
students in the ag department had a hand in building it.
“All the ag classes for about a week came out here and got this prepared,” he said. “We did set the
deadline that we’d have it up and ready to go for the fish fry, so the last week, we just brought everybody
out and did everything we could to get it done.”
The project began in March, but construction was delayed due to “weather and waiting for this to happen
or that to happen,” Mareth said.
“Once we got started, about five days was the total turnaround time for getting the structure up and ready
to go.”
The students did get a little bit of help from Liberty Utilities, who drilled the holes in which the students
set the posts for the barn.
“They ... brought their equipment up, dug the holes for us and had a little career day with the kids that
morning,” Mareth said.
Mareth said he believes the skills the students used to build the pole barn are something all kids should
have.
“I’m kind of under the firm belief that every kid ought to be able to know how to square up a building and
build a shop in their backyard,” he said. “Anything from a doghouse to a deck to putting up a building like
this; a kid ought to know how to do some of that. The benefit that they get out of this deal is they get to
see all the way from site selection to site preparation to laying the facility out to actually squaring the
facility up. And they brought it to fruition; they get to see the whole thing when they’re done with it.
Further Mareth said, the students benefitted in other ways from building the barn.
“One is, they learn how to build a building, (and) they learn what goes into building a building,” he said.
“Second of all, they have ownership. A lot of people or a lot of institutions worry about people tearing
stuff up. These kids, they take care of this thing. They own it. It’s theirs. They built it and they drive by it,
and if they see somebody up here doing something they shouldn’t be doing, they’re Johnny-on-the-Spot
to be (saying), ‘Hey, I built that building. Don’t be up here messing around.’”
The pole barn will have multiple uses, Mareth said.
“We can put our equipment in, and it will double as a livestock facility show pavilion for the Greene
County Livestock Expo that we’ll have (on) July 3,” he said. “We’re going to host it here on the school
grounds.”