By THOMAS P. WEAVER

HORIZON Editor

CELINA-Despite having been featured in Nashville newscasts as a possible problem, supervised local inmates completed the much needed playground mulching project here at the Celina K-8 School last week and officials from Clay County Schools wanted to recognize them for their efforts.

“The re-mulching of the playground was a project in the works for some time now, but wet weather had kept it from being completed before school started.  Thanks to the inmates’ hard work, the playground can now be used by students again,” supervisor of instruction Debbie Eads said Monday.  “Even though having them there during school hours was seen as a problem by a couple of parents and portrayed that way in the television newscasts, we felt getting the playground ready for the students was important.

“We have used the inmates on many other occasions when school was out with no problems.  They were supervised and students were kept in the building when they were on school property.  Again, we want to offer our thanks to them for all their hard work,” Eads said.

She also said the central office received no calls or complaints about the inmates’ presence at the school that day.

“We only had them there because of the time factor in getting the project done so the students could enjoy the playground again,” Eads said.  “The inmates’ supervisor said they could do it that day if we could get the mulch there and we did in order to get it done as quickly as possible.”

The project was organized to replace rotting mulch that had been in place at the playground since 2004.  The old material was removed and the inmates spread four tractor-trailer loads (437 square yards) of mulch the day they were there.