Putnam Taking Auditorium Upgrade Bids

Auditorium lighting set for an upgrade at Cookeville High School and Avery Trace Middle School, as the bidding process underway.

Deputy Director of Schools Tim Martin said the two projects are unrelated as both systems have been experiencing operational issues. Martin said the systems may seem simple when watching a school play but they are very complex and difficult to work on, due to the infrastructure height.

“We’re never going to try to replace a system that is as expensive as these the first time something happens to it,” Martin said. “So we spent a lot of time and a lot of effort to keep these systems working and recently the people that we’ve had working on them have told us that there (is) just not much more they can do for them.”

Martin said they expect each auditorium to cost some $500,000 to upgrade. He said the auditoriums will be closed while the lights are being replaced but they need to get bids in to know how long that will take.

“I hope that they’ll be able to have better programs,” Martin said. “Many of our schools have very good drama programs that use those auditoriums.”

Martin said the auditoriums serve as an important place for assemblies and various meetings with parents and students.

“Those kinds of assemblies it’s usually just turn the lights on or turn the lights off and that’s not that big of a deal,” Martin said. “But when they’re using those for their dramatic programs lighting is a big part of that.”

Martin said the control panels for these systems are very costly and complicated in addition to the lights themselves.

“Lights in auditoriums, sometimes they’re bright, sometimes they’re dim, sometimes they’re off,” Martin said. “So there’s just a lot of things that go into the lights and these are very expensive systems.”