Texico students finishing up fairgrounds sign

TEXICO — Every August, the Texico High ag mechanics program brings some of its finest metal works to the Curry County Fairgrounds and cleans up on county fair awards.

This year, the students' biggest fair project is being delivered two months early, and it's staying there.

A student-crafted sign to decorate the Brady Street entrance of the Curry County Events Center and Fairgrounds will likely be installed in July, capping off an effort that gives Texico kids experience and Curry County a deep discount.

The all-steel sign will be 10 feet wide and 12 feet tall, with an extra 4 feet in the ground, and weigh around 2,000 pounds.

Above the Curry County Events Center logo will be 12-inch letters reading, "CURRY COUNTY." Below the logo will be 10-inch letters reading, "EVENTS CENTER AND FAIRGROUNDS."

The county at first bid the project out, and got one $15,000 quote from an Albuquerque company. Commissioner Robert Thornton saw an opportunity for Texico and the program run by Terry Whitener.

"He does a really good job with those kids," Thornton said of Whitener and the program. "It's pretty amazing, some of the things they do."

Thornton invited Whitener to a February commission meeting, and a unanimous commission vote followed Whitener's appeal for a win-win partnership.

"This project is a great thing for us because these are kids that use the county facilities," Whitener said. "They'll be able to come back 20, 50 years from now and say, 'I had a hand in this.' They'll be able to tell their kids and grandkids what they helped build for the community.

"If this was a private individual, we'd work out some sort of price, but this is for the county. The experience they're getting from this far outweighs any dollar amount they could put in their pocket."

The county, however, is counting the dollar amount — specifically, savings of around $6,000. The county will cover powder coating, painting and installation of the sign, along with burying an electric line to power the sign's lighting. All that, plus a $2,500 reimbursement to Texico Schools for the locally purchased material, puts the total cost between $8,500 and $9,000.

The county gave Whitener a sketch of what it wanted the sign to look like, and Whitener enlisted senior Kolten Wines to turn that sketch into a building plan with software in the lab. Creating those pieces went to other students, as Wines' work time was cut short by his own graduation and work schedule.

"I trust the guys at the school; they know what they're doing; I showed them what to do," said Wines, who is working for a refrigeration company in Clovis this summer before he enters Army basic training in August.

"It will be cool for me to see. I drive by (the sign's future location) every day. I'm pretty excited I got to design the sign for Curry County."

Sophomore Kendahl Workheiser, who works in the fifth-period class, helped cut the letters. The rule of thumb was spell check twice, cut once.

"It's a little different because I usually go my own way," Workheiser said. "Now I have to start work on somebody else's program. I'm getting used to it.

"I think it will be good. I live out in the county, and I use those buildings all the time. I rope, I rodeo. It just needs a new sign."

On a whiteboard in Whitener's classroom is a list of each student with their working project. About 25 students in four classes, who finished projects with a few school days to spare, were pulled onto the county sign project.

Whitener figures a professional in the field could handle the sign in two or three days without interruption, but it's an unfair standard for high school kids doing piecemeal work in fragmented class periods.

"They have to do shop setup, they have to do cleanup; they'll make mistakes and have to fix them because they're not as experienced," Whitener said. "You probably quadruple the time it takes."

The goal over the last two weeks - Texico's final day of instruction is today - has been to get the sign to a point where Whitener and a few students could do finishing touches over the next few weeks.

"My goal is to have the work done by mid- to late June on our part," Whitener said. " I prefer mid-June, but I have two June conferences to attend."