Courtesy of Patrick Massey of KDQN and the De Queen Bee
DE QUEEN – After several years of planning and months of bidding, the De Queen School District finally has a company lined up to construct its new animal science and agriculture facility.
During its July meeting, the De Queen School Board voted to approve a $700,000 bid for the new facility from Altech, a Texarkana, Texas-based construction company.
De Queen Superintendent Jason Sanders said the facility has been a goal since he first came to the district.
“I’m going into my seventh year here at De Queen and right from the beginning there was interest from the board in building a school farm and animal science facility at De Queen,” said Sanders. “We’re very excited because this is something we’ve been working on for years and everything finally came together to make it happen.”
Given the importance of agriculture to Southwest Arkansas, Sanders said the animal science and school farm will provide some great opportunities for De Queen’s students.
“Agriculture is big here,” he said. “We want a way to open up more opportunities for our students in agriculture. At the same time, if there are students who don’t have land or acreage, they might now be able to get into animal science and have an animal project.”
Sanders said a good financial year for De Queen Schools will allow the district to cover most of the cost of the project with savings from the current fiscal year.
The district hopes to have the new facility constructed by the end of the year.