The Daily Standard
Story Archive
Marion Local staff, faculty and community members celebrated the opening of the new middle school with a ribbon-cutting and self-guided tours. The main attraction was the new varsity gymnasium.
MARIA STEIN - Folks from Marion Local Schools' past, present and future celebrated the long-awaited opening of the district's new middle school Thursday night with a ceremony, ribbon cutting and self-guided tours.
Located north of the existing elementary school, the building houses 11 junior high and special education classrooms, an agriculture education suite including two classrooms and a greenhouse, a kindergarten through eighth-grade cafeteria/commons area, four locker rooms, administrative offices and a 2,000-seat gymnasium.
Construction began in October 2024 and wrapped up in August.
Marion Local staff, faculty and community members celebrated the opening of the new middle school with a ribbon-cutting and self-guided tours. The agriculture education suite is shown here.
Garmann Miller of Minster prepared the plans for the $23.4 million project, which was financed by a voter-approved combination of a 5.3-mill property tax and 0.5% earned income tax. Touchstone CDP of Lima managed the construction project.
The 74,280-square-foot building has been in the works since at least 2017 to account for the district's rising enrollment. A building task force - made up of community members, school board members and administrators - was formed to provide community input on the project in 2022.
"With the growing enrollment we're seeing at Marion Local, it was the task force from multiple years ago that met and really created the vision. Today just marks a celebration that now we can enter the 2026-27 school year having facilities to fit our growing population," superintendent Mike Pohlman said. "Even though these classrooms are only for seventh and eighth graders, this building is for the whole entire district. A K-8 cafeteria, a high school gym for our high school students and an ag facility that serves junior high and high school."
Marion Local staff, faculty and community members celebrated the opening of the new middle school with a ribbon-cutting and self-guided tours. The kindergarten through eighth-grade cafeteria/commons area is shown here.
While the building is impressive in its design and function, the facilities sit on a foundation that was built long before the first shovel ever entered the ground, Pohlman said.
"A school district is never defined by a building alone. The true strength of a school comes from its people, its values and its traditions," he said. "This facility stands on the shoulders of those who came before us, the generations of students who worked hard in the classroom, on the field, on the stage and in service to others."
The new building is the culmination of a process that started about a decade ago, but didn't really gain traction until an "extraordinary group of volunteers agreed to join our task force," school board president Randy Bruns said, echoing Pohlman's praise of the group.
"I'm in my 15th year on the school board and there has not been a time since I've been on the board - since I started in 2012 - that we haven't talked about facilities. How to maintain, upgrade and improve them for our students and our community," Bruns said. "There were some hard knocks along the way, but through them we learned a lot about what our community wanted, and what they would be willing to support."
Marion Local staff, faculty and community members celebrated the opening of the new middle school with a ribbon-cutting and self-guided tours. A new sign marks the entrance of the building..
Marion Local staff, faculty and community members celebrated the opening of the new middle school with a ribbon-cutting and self-guided tours.
Pohlman added that seeing locals see the final product that they helped create makes all of the work officials put into the project worth it.
"I was very excited for this day to come. … There's just so many conversations and there were so many community members involved. We're picking their brain and talking to them (and asking), 'OK, what does the community want?'" Pohlman said. "When you start that planning process, and now you see the end. Now they can actually physically walk into the place that they helped create the vision for. Was it long? Yes. From the time we started planning till now? Yeah. But that work is working. After seeing the look on people's faces tonight? It brings so much joy to my heart because, like I keep saying - yes, this is for current and future students, but it has so much to do with the past too."
Marion Local students are set to return for their first day of school on Aug. 26, after a back-to-school open house set for Aug. 24.
Marion Local staff, faculty and community members celebrated the opening of the new middle school with a ribbon-cutting and self-guided tours.
