Trustee Chad Snell, who is stepping down from the Adams Township School Board at the end of this semester, kneels beside the 1935 Jeffers High School swimming pool that was his project to make operational again after more than seven years being unused. (Daily Mining Gazette photo)

By Graham Jaehnig

Daily Mining Gazette

PAINESDALE — After more than 12 years, Chad Snell attended his last Adams Township School Board meeting Wednesday evening as a trustee. Snell said he feels honored to have been a board member, but felt it was time for him to step down to allow someone else to take his seat.

“New blood,” he said. “Boards should have new blood from time to time.” Among his many accomplishments in those 12 years, Snell, according to Superintendent Tim Keteri, was the mover behind the pool on the ground floor of Jeffers High School being recently reopened, after being shut down since 2015.

The pool was constructed in 1935 and operated until 2015, said Keteri. The pool was shut down due to needed upgrades, including new filters and pumps.

“Chad said ‘Mark my words: that thing is never going to reopen if we don’t do something,'” Keteri said.

The project to reopen the pool started just over two years ago, he said. The Health Department inspected, approved and certified the pool last week.

Keteri, was once a swim instructor at the pool, according to School Board Trustee Ashley Sudderth, who was a member of his swim class. She said he was a very good and thorough instructor.

In the past, said Keteri, the South Range Elementary School students in grades 4 to 6 had swim classes at the pool.

“And we’re continuing that,” he said, “and we also have a life skills class at Jeffers for the Junior High. They will be in the pool in the second semester, so we’re bringing back the practicality of swimming.”

The swimming pool dates back to the 1934-35 expansion of Painesdale High School, as it was then called, which more than doubled the size of the original 1909 structure. Funding for the expansion came from the Civil Works Administration, which totaled $200,000.

The expansion included the addition of two wings, one on each end of the original building, according to A.K. Hoagland, on the Michigan Tech Copper Country Architects website. Between the two wings was constructed a new gymnasium and swimming pool. The new wings provided new classrooms, study hall, library and dressing rooms for both females and males. The new construction converted the existing gymnasium in the basement of the school into seating for a new gymnasium, and the new swimming pool-the first in a Copper Country school-with Art Deco tiles.

The Art Deco tiles, as well as the asphalt tiles around the pool itself, are still in place, something Keteri was proud to point out.

“The tiles are original,” he said. “And look at the pool tile. That’s original tile, installed by Italian masons, throughout the entire school. This is it. Original tile from 1935.”

Keteri said that in 1934, there was a millage proposal. Twelve people voted, approving the millage, which funded the two wings and the pool.

“The Jeffers, Fred and Cora, wanted this,” said Keteri, “but I think it was more Cora.”

Keteri said that while Jeffers had a competitive swim team for many years in the past, but it gradually fizzled out and it was ended. While the newly certified pool will again be used for practical swimming programs, he said he is completely uncertain whether the swim team will come back.

Daily Mining Gazette Sports Editor Daver Karnosky said he cannot remember when Jeffers had a swim team, but Houghton has had a team throughout the years, given that they have a pool in the school, something the rest of the Copper Country did not add to their schools.

Houghton has a swim team, said Karnosky, but since no one else in the CCISD has a team, they have to travel to Kingsford, Westwood, Ishpeming, Marquette and Sault Ste. Marie to compete.

“They make seven trips to Marquette this year,” he said, “to face any one of the Marquette area teams.”