BARNESVILLE — If you’ve not been in any of the three Barnesville gymnasiums in the last few years you probably wouldn’t recognize them now.

A three-year, three-phase project to completely remodel the the gymnasiums at the high, middle and elementary schools wrapped up earlier this month.

“Our facilties are more marketable and definitely something for our students and community to be proud of,” Barnesville Athletics Director Mark Cook said. “When people come into our facilities for athletic events, we want them feel like we have one of the nicest facilities in the area.”

The project was made feasible through a partnership between Barnesville Exempted Village Schools and Scholastic Sports Marketing. The marketing arm went out and solicited sponsorships to help offset the cost. In the end, the school district ended up paying for the gym paintings.

The chief sponsors for the projects included Sulek & Dutton, which was the “major” sponsor; Doan Ford, which has its name adorned to each of the three gym floors; Ohio University Eastern, WesBanco, Johnson Boiler Works, Health Plan, Barnesville Hospital, McDonald’s and Artworks.

“We are grateful for our generous sponsors,” Scholastic Sports Marketing President James Companion said. “Without them, this project wouldn’t have been possible.”

Cook acknowledged just how much the sponsorships meant to the school and the ability to complete the project.

“We would not have been able to do the entire spectrum of what we did without those sponsors along with the support provided by our booster club and school treasurer Matt King,” Cook admitted. “We would have really had to look closely at our needs and went from there. We definitely wouldn’t have been able to do the whole gamut in each gym in that three-year span.”

Barnesville graduate Mike Sulek, representing Sulek & Dutton, said his company’s involvement in the project was a relatively easy decision.

“Our main goal was to be able to make a donation to the school system,” Sulek said. “We wanted to thank the school, and community, for supporting us as well as they have since we opened an office here four years ago. I believe the gymnasiums are beautiful.

Everything from the floors to the walls and all of the wall decorations. We’re just really proud to be here and involved. In our business, we know the value of a good school system because a good school system means property values are much more in favor of a home owner when they go to sell.”

Barnesville utilizes all three gymnasiums during the course of the school year for athletic contests. Obviously, the high school gym plays host to volleyball, boys and girls basketball and wrestling. The middle school, which is located near the high school, is home to junior high volleyball and junior high girls basketball, while junior high boys basketball plays at the elementary school, which is located downtown.

“We have very few issues with gym availability,” Cook said. “Not too many schools have three gyms to schedule things around. It definitely makes it a lot easier on everyone.”

All of the work on the gyms was done in the spring through the summer months and outside of causing the schools to re-arrange a few physical education courses, it had little effect on the day-to-day activities at the schools.

Scott Hagan, who is known as the ‘Barn Artist,’ was the first part of the process. He began in March of 2015 painting the high school gym from “top to bottom.” He painted the walls, doors and ceiling and then added the murals on the wall.

The bulk of the work was done during phase one, which occurred in the summer of 2015.

That included new scoreboards, wall pads and scoretables in all three gymnasiums. Also in the first phase was the installation of a new gymnasium floor at the high school.

Hagan returned to Barnesville and painted the elementary school gymnasium and the Cincinnati Floor Company laid down an identical gym floor in the school as it did in the high school during the summer of 2016.

This summer, the work was completed in the middle school with a new floor and paintings. The new floors do not use any paint. The coloring on the floor is all done with stain.

“It’s a two-color stain and it got to be pricey,” Cook said. “But, thanks to the sponsors and James generating the revenue that they did, we were able to do what we wanted.”

The students returned to school last Monday and the middle school hosted its first event, which was a junior high volleyball game against Bridgeport that evening.