If you drive by Trinity High School along Simpson Ferry Road just outside of Shiremanstown, you will see massive piles of dirt everywhere, while also noticing abundant signs of internal construction happening campus wide.
“Alleluia, Alleluia,” Trinity’s principal, John Cominsky, exclaimed at the close of the groundbreaking ceremony on June 9, during which Bishop Ronald Gainer blessed the school environs and broke ground on a $5.5 million, multiple-pronged project. “This has been 60 years in the making, and I want to thank all the benefactors, board members, faculty, coaches, parents, students and all who have been a part of getting us to this wonderful day. I am so happy for this day!”
The school is in the process of replacing the aging natural turf at COBO Field with a synthetic turf that will allow teams to share the field during the busy fall and spring seasons. In addition, the day after graduation last month, school personnel, along with a host of volunteers, gutted the auditorium seating and fixtures to make way for a complete renovation of the school’s main gathering place for Masses, performing arts and school celebrations.
This summer, the gymnasium will also be renovated, with new bleachers, gym floor varnish and accent painting to enhance the decades’ old original painting. The wooden bleachers dated back to 1963, when the school first opened, and will be replaced in the coming weeks with safe and accessible seating.
The turf field is scheduled to be completed by late summer, with the top fill stadium dirt being moved to the campus’ practice fields, which will be graded and expanded to offer teams a better practice facility. The auditorium may take until later in the fall for its completion date, and the gym will be finished by summer’s end if all goes according to schedule.
In his brief remarks prior to the blessing and rite of sprinkling, Bishop Gainer told the more than 75 Trinity faithful gathered behind the school, “God makes us co-workers with Him in doing this type of project. He puts us here, he puts you here to be his co-worker. As Mr. Cominsky said, ‘Though we are blessing the ground and the work to be done here, it is you who are the blessing’… We thank God for the wonderful work that Trinity does in teaching and preparing our young people.”
(Photos by Chris Heisey, The Catholic Witness.)
By Chris Heisey, The Catholic Witness
