Bearcat Baseball Stadium is in the process of receiving a full makeover, with professional-grade turf, advanced drainage systems and energy-efficient lighting being installed to allow players the ability to use the field year-round.
But one aspect of Bearcat Baseball Stadium didn’t make it into the renovation budget: the dugouts.
“We came up against the budget on the new turfed field, and we wanted a way to make the dugouts look better,” said Chehalis Foundation Executive Director Jenny Collins.
Meanwhile, W.F. West High School career and technical education (CTE) woodworking and construction teacher Mark Wagar was looking for a project that his students could take the lead on.
The district recently received an $80,000 donation for all new woodworking and construction equipment for W.F. West High School, and Collins and Wagar agreed it was time to put that equipment, and Wagar’s CTE students, to work.
“They’re doing the project from start to finish,” Collins said. “It’s already a concrete structure, but it needed new roofing, and it’s kind of dilapidated, so they’re going to get to do a project from beginning to end.”
The students in Wagar’s woodworking and construction class are building wooden framing to go around the outside of the concrete dugouts and will install new metal roofs on each dugout.
The roofing itself has been donated by Macaw Metals LLC in Chehalis, owned by Jenny Collins’ son, Tyler Collins.
Tyler Collins and his employees hosted W.F. West woodworking and construction students at Macaw Metals’ distribution center in Chehalis on Tuesday for a tour of the facility and a demonstration on how metal roofing is made and installed.
Collins also talked to the students about roofing as a career and his own experience in the trades.
“No matter what you do, whether it’s trades or college, you should execute a plan,” Tyler Collins told students. “ …If you can get into trades and learn it and maybe even start a business, and you have a business where you’re employing people that want to get into trades, you could be a big benefit.”
“In my lifetime, it’s better to get into trades right now than ever. The pay is better. The benefits are better. The options are better,” Wagar told his students on Tuesday. “If you’re a skilled tradesman, you’re going to do really, really well.”
The woodworking and construction students are hoping to have the dugouts finished by early March, according to W.F. West Assistant Principal and CTE Director Don Bunker.
The Chehalis School District broke ground on the Bearcat Stadium Renovation project during a ceremony on Aug. 28, 2023, and turf installation was completed in October 2024.
For more information on the project, visit https://chehalisfoundation.org/bearcat-baseball-stadium-press-release/.
