The 2011 senior gift, an electronic marquee for the front of the school, remains incomplete.

English teacher and former ASB faculty advisor Mercedes Foster said that the class of 2011 fundraised several thousand dollars in order to get the new marquee. The year after that, funding to the cause continued, in the form of such things as belt sales. According to Brown, these fundraisers only got the fund up to seven thousand dollars.

“The class that left just didn’t leave enough money for the type of marquee that we want,” Brown said. “They were pursuing an option for a small, skinny, thin sign, and that’s just not what we want. So, we kind of had to start over from scratch.”

Foster said that there has long been talk about updating the current marquee, which is operated by manually inserting letters, to something more modern. As of now, there is only room to display a couple events at a time.

“With an electronic marquee we can get everything that’s going on in the school up there, because some groups tend to get left out,” Foster said. “If it’s a sport, then the arts get left out. If the arts are up there, a club gets left out.”

Foster said that the current marquee is housed in a structure that is a memorial for a student that had passed away in the 1980’s, requiring the new marquee to be custom-made, so as not to interfere with this memorial, but only with the white slotted part inside. History teacher and ASB advisor Ken Brown said that he has been in touch with a company in southern California that sells the desired marquees and with whom he has brought up the subject of needing a custom-made one.

“Once I dropped that on the guy, that’s when he said ‘well, fifty grand’,” Brown said. “In all honesty, I think he was just telling us to leave because he knew we weren’t going to pay fifty grand for it, so we’re still trying to find someone who can give us what we want for a price that is right.”

Senior Will Corvin said that a new sign would be good for keeping students informed, but he does not know if it is worth the money.

“I know from ASB people that it is a pain to change the [current marquee] and takes a really long time, so they don’t change it that often,” Corvin said. “It’s a good idea if we have the money, but we seem to be short on funding.”

Brown said that they have a pretty good idea of what they are looking for now- something a little more modern and that will fulfill its purpose.

“I really hope that they hurry up and do it because I think that in the big picture it is going to help publicize things in a very physical way,” Foster said. “We are so interconnected with each other and with technology, but there is so much information, so to be standing outside waiting for your mom to pick you up, and to see ‘basketball game tonight’, is nice.”

Foster said that there is a law in Piedmont that prohibits certain kinds of signage.

“The school is exempt from that,” Foster said. “But we don’t want to step on anyone’s toes and take advantage of that by having something big and garish that doesn’t appeal to, or at least satisfy the community at large.”

Corvin said that although he thinks an electronic marquee would probably be aesthetically unappealing, the positives of one would outweigh the negatives.

“If it serves a purpose, I don’t see a problem with it,” Corvin said.

Foster said that both she and Brown understand that people have put money into this project, and therefore it is essential for it to be put into action.

“When summertime comes, I’ll be teaching summer school up here three times a week, so I’ll have extra time to go on job walks with the contractors and take them through,” Brown said. “I’m hoping, if nothing else, we’ll get things locked in over the summertime. It depends on the contractor’s schedule. We’re ready to roll if we have the money for it.”

Brown said that the first step is to find a marquee that is in a price range that ASB can afford.

“Once we have that, then we can figure out how to raise the rest of the money, and then proceed with the contractor,” Brown said. “That’s going to be the hard part, raising the money.”