Seventy-one years is a long time to wait for renovations, but the El Rancho High School community only has to wait five more months to get a first look at a $200 million project, officials said this week. Superintendent Marco Villegas is getting ready to call done on a dream he said is long-held by students, families and residents. Set to be open in April are a brand-new football stadium, already wreathed in Boise State Blue and white, only waiting for the track oval be built around it; sports fields for baseball and softball; soccer and track facilities as well as an aquatics center. “The new field facilities at our high school represent more than just a space for sports; they are an investment in our students and our community,” said Kendall Goyenaga, principal at El Rancho. “These state-of-the-art fields provide our students with opportunities to develop their talents, skills, and foster school spirit.” Villegas said the new facilities will also serve as a point of pride in the community. The high school construction project is funded by Measure ER, a $200 million school construction bond approved by voters of the El Rancho Unified School District in 2016. It would be the first facilities improvement at the school since the school first opened its doors in 1952, according to Ester Mejia, president of the El Rancho Union School District board. Generations of Dons wear the Blue Pride loudly, and alumni and students alike will find plenty to love, from a new Don Memorial Stadium with its blue football field, 5,000-seat bleachers, and press box, to the synthetic track and field and a new practice field and new basketball courts. The project also includes new team rooms, locker rooms, restrooms, concessions, ticket booths, coach’s offices, storage spaces, a weight room, and a training room. There will be new scoreboards, sports lighting, outdoor sound systems, walkways, netting, fencing, and general site improvements. The 33-meter pool will meet CIF regulations and will come with bleachers and a digital scoreboard. The parking lots around the area will be reconfigured and the fencing along the perimeter of the project will be upgraded for safety. The new facilities can’t come soon enough for El Rancho’s football team. The Dons have been practicing off campus in the two years since ground-breaking. They are in the semi-finals this week and have an overall record of 8-4 and a league record of 2-2 so far. “The first eight months (of construction) people didn’t really see anything except a lot of demolition, then in the next six to seven months it might have seemed like we were just moving dirt from one spot to another,” Villegas said. “But things were happening that just weren’t easy to see. These facilities are going to be second to none and goes a long way in showing we are one city, one district. This is just the beginning.”As TCU expands its presence both in size and prominence, Victor Boschini, the chancellor of the university for more than two decades, will step away from his role as head of the university. Boschini, who was previously president of Illinois State University before coming to TCU in 2003, will become chancellor emeritus. “TCU is an incredible place and deserves an incredible leader to take us into the next years of student-centered growth, academic excellence and impact,” Boschini said Dec. 2 in a statement. The TCU Board of Trustees has tapped TCU President Daniel W. Pullin as Boschini’s successor. Pullin, who will begin the new role on June 1, 2025, is uniquely poised to build on TCU’s momentum, Boschini added. “He is an inspiring leader with a big vision, and his unbounded energy makes him a force of nature,” Boschini said. Under Boschini’s helm, the university grew its presence by moving up in the U.S. News & World Report national rankings, more than doubling the number of TCU students enrolled and ushering in a new era of athletic success that culminated in a national football championship berth in 2023. Last year, the university celebrated reaching its $1 billion fundraising goal as part of the “Lead On” campaign — the most significant investment in the university since its founding in 1873. TCU also marked a major milestone when it opened a new medical school campus on West Rosedale Street earlier this year. Get essential daily news for the Fort Worth area. Sign up for insightful, in-depth stories — completely free. But Boschini’s tenure also faced scrutiny, including a summer 2020 meeting where the TCU Faculty Senate considered a vote of no confidence in university leadership over the then-requirement to teach in-person classes, the reduction of employee benefits and the desire for the university to take a stronger stand on racial inequalities on campus. No formal vote was taken, and ultimately faculty had the option to teach remotely in fall 2020. The university launched its Race & Reconciliation Initiative , which has since explored TCU’s relationship with slavery, racism and the Confederacy. Less than a year after the debacle, Boschini said his relationship with faculty members has always been “really good.” Faculty were going through a crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic and needed someone to be mad at, he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2021. “One thing I’m very proud of; we didn’t release one freakin’ person from TCU,” he said. “Show me a company that didn’t do that around here.” Boschini also alluded to the emotional and physical toll of the job, which “got worse and worse and worse” during the pandemic. He lost sleep — and 15 pounds. At the time, Boschini said his plan was to retire in 2026. Pullin arrived at the university to become the dean of the Neeley School of Business in 2019. He was previously the dean of University of Oklahoma’s business school. Pullin, a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and Harvard Business School, became president of the university in 2023. Discussions about Boschini’s transition began in 2020, and Pullin’s hiring kicked off the succession plan, according to the university. “From the very first moment I stepped onto campus seven years ago, I thought, ‘This place is special,’” Pullin said in a university statement. “As dean of Neeley and now as president, I’ve said that same thing every day. I’ve been inspired by the thoughtful and intelligent students in my classes, by my generous and bright colleagues as we collaborate on projects large and small, and by our community coming together and collaborating on our shared vision for what comes next.” Boschini will still teach, raise money and work on enrollment at the university. In the coming months, Pullin will continue to work closely with Boschini to aid in a seamless transition. The university’s board of trustees is set to ratify the plan to hand the reins to Pullin at its spring 2025 meeting. Both leaders are known for their accessibility and their commitment to the student experience. Pullin can be frequently spotted walking around in his purple Chuck Taylor Converse and talking to students. When TCU’s Facebook page announced Boschini’s stepping away from his role and Pullin taking over, one commenter wrote: “Huuuuge shoes to fill. He bleeds purple, and that is one of the many things we love about him.” Once Pullin becomes chancellor, the position of president will not be replaced, a TCU spokesperson said. Shomial Ahmad is a higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report, in partnership with Open Campus . Contact her at shomial.ahmad@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here . The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Your support makes TRIPLE the impact today. Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday ! Don’t miss your chance to triple your impact and support local news. Every gift up to $5,000 will be tripled before 11:59 PM on Dec. 3! Related Fort Worth Report is certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative for adhering to standards for ethical journalism . Republish This Story Republishing is free for noncommercial entities. Commercial entities are prohibited without a licensing agreement. Contact us for details. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License . Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS). Do not copy stories straight from the front-end of our web-site. You are required to follow the guidelines and use the republication tool when you share our content. The republication tool generates the appropriate html code. You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. You can’t sell or syndicate our stories. Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization. If you use our stories in any other medium — for example, newsletters or other email campaigns — you must make it clear that the stories are from the Fort Worth Report. In all emails, link directly to the story at fortworthreport.org and not to your website. If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @FortWorthReport on Facebook and @FortWorthReport on Twitter. You have to credit Fort Worth Report. Please use “Author Name, Fort Worth Report” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Fort Worth Report” and include our website, fortworthreport.org . You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. You can’t sell or syndicate our stories. You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection. Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization. If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @FortWorthReport on Facebook and @FortWorthReport on Twitter. by Shomial Ahmad, Fort Worth Report December 2, 2024
Is a phone for your kid on the holiday shopping list? Read this first
Commuters and tourists from West Kochi may have to wait until December 20 to use the Harbour Bridge that had been closed for traffic on November 21 for scooping out the worn-out tarred surface and to blacktop it afresh. According to schedule, resurfacing of the bridge that was built by the British in the early 1940’s was to get over in a week, by November 28. Commuters, tourism stakeholders, and others had expressed their discontent at the delay in commencing the resurfacing work, although the worn-out tarred surface had been scooped out in two days. The inordinate delay in completing resurfacing has worsened traffic hold-ups in the West Kochi-Ernakulam corridor, during the ongoing peak tourist season, said Jacob Antony, a social worker from West Kochi. All vehicles, including ambulances, were getting stuck indefinitely in snarls that often extend to alternative roads and bridges, he added. Citing the reason for the delay in completing the resurfacing of the bridge and its reopening, sources in the Public Works department (Bridges wing) said they were in for a surprise as the concrete surface of the bridge that emerged soon after the tarred layer was scooped out, had many cracks. “In this situation, officials of the design wing and others conducted a site inspection a couple of days ago. They suggested that a layer of mastic asphalt be applied atop the concrete surface to bring about uniformity of the surface and also to ensure that resurfacing that had been planned using bituminous concrete (BC) bound better with the concrete,” they said. A view of the closed Harbour Bridge on Saturday. | Photo Credit: THULASI KAKKAT The resurfacing using BC can be completed in a day. But the work to lay mastic asphalt is labour-intensive and hence time-consuming. “In this situation, we have sought the District Collector’s permission to extend the ban on traffic through the bridge till December 20, they said, and cited Vyttila and Kundannoor flyovers on the NH bypass as examples of structures, which had a layer of mastic asphalt between the concrete and the tarred portion. The proposed resurfacing would have an 18-month defect liability period. A month ago, the PWD (NH wing) had resurfaced the two-km-long Kundannoor bridge using stone mastic asphalt (SMA). On the long-pending work to replace the heavily rusted components of steel girders beneath the Harbour Bridge, sources said no contractor came forward to take up the work, although tenders were floated eight times. “We hope the government earmarks funds in the Budget for the work,” they added. Published - November 30, 2024 10:32 pm IST Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Kochi / Kerala / public works & infrastructure