Greenwood School Board votes to allow Loyal School District residents access to fitness center
By Cheyenne Thomas In a show of support to the residents of the city of Loyal following the Sept. 12 fire that destroyed three buildings, including the city’s fitness center, the Greenwood School Board unanimously voted to allow any residents of the Loyal School District the ability to use the Greenwood fitness center facilities at the same rate as Greenwood residents through the end of 2025. The decision will be reevaluated at the end of 2025 to reflect any changes made in the Loyal community in the next year.
The motion was made and passed by the Greenwood board at its regular meeting held on Sept. 30. When it was proposed, District Administrator Joe Green said the question to open up the Greenwood fitness center to Loyal residents was one that had been posed to him by a few community members in the past few weeks following Loyal’s Main Street fire.
“They lost their fitness center,” he told the board. “I thought that this should be something we should consider. Do we want to offer our facility as a, I don’t know what you are supposed to call it, good deed, nice neighbor gesture? Offer them some form of resident rate for residents of Loyal.”
The board considered the proposal, asking if there was an estimate on how many Greenwood residents currently use the facility and if there was a risk of the facility becoming overcrowded by allowing Loyal residents to also use the Greenwood fitness center. While he didn’t have numbers, Green said that although Loyal did lose their fitness center, he is not expecting a flood of Loyal residents coming to Greenwood all at once.
“There’s a lot of hours in the day where it’s open and not in use,” said Green. “I don’t know how many people use our facilities, but if people come by and see that it’s full, well, it’s full.”
The board also asked which residents should be allowed to use the facility, if the offer would be open to only those Loyal residents who had memberships at the Loyal Fitness Center who can no longer use the facility they paid a membership for, or if the offer should be open to all Loyal School District residents. After some discussion, the board decided to open it up to all Loyal School District residents.
“We should try to do something, a good
Please see Fitness center, page 9 Fitness center,
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gesture to those who lost a resource,” said Green.
The Greenwood board voted unanimously to open up access to the Greenwood school fitness center to all residents of the Loyal School District at the same rates Greenwood residents have to use the facilities through the end of 2025. At the end of 2025, the board decided it would reconvene on the matter to decide if the offer would be extended for continued use by Loyal residents, or if anything had changed in the course of a year for the return of Loyal’s fitness center.
Currently, Greenwood residents who use the fitness center at the high school pay a $50 per year rate to use the facility, with a one-time cost of $10 to get a card fob to allow access throughout the year. Any resident who contacts the Greenwood School District to request using the fitness center has to sign paperwork for insurance purposes and go through a short training before being allowed to use the facility. Any resident of the Loyal School District who wishes to use the Greenwood fitness center would be expected to follow the same rules as Greenwood residents.
