Garland school given $100K gym

Eldon Peterson, principle of Bear River Middle School shows a photograph of the storage room before they turned it in to a 22 station exercise facility. The Tremonton school was one of three schools selected for Don’t Quit Fitness Centers in the state. There were 200 applicants across the state that applied for $100,000 worth of fitness equipment.

Bear River Middle School in Garland was one of three schools selected for Don’t Quit Fitness Centers in the state. There were 200 applicants across Utah that applied for $100,000 worth of fitness equipment.

Bear River Middle School in Tremonton was one of three schools selected for Don’t Quit Fitness Centers in the state. The fitness equipment has been a real asset to the students.

The Garland school cleaned out an equipment closet, then turned it into a TuffStuff Fitness International showroom. The former closet now has state-of-the-art exercise equipment arranged in 22 separate stations. Students can run through the series of machines in about 30 minutes.

Fitness television icon, Jake Steinfeld, chairman of the National Foundation for Governors’ Fitness Councils and companies like Coca Cola, AmeriGroup Foundation, and Wheels Up funded the national campaign.

Steinfield was one of the more successful fitness stars of the 80’s with his Body by Jake workouts, videos and personal exercise equipment. He continues to champion fitness for everyone.

“I’ve declared war on this preventable disease,” Steinfield said. “And I’m inspired to see Governor Herbert immediately jump on board to join the battle and welcome us into the state.”

Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert is also a big supporter of fitness in the schools.

“I am grateful for this opportunity for our schools,” said Gov. Gary R. Herbert. “Health and wellness are key to both success and happiness, and we want to help our students establish habits that will give them bright and strong futures.”

Bear River Middle School principal, Eldon Peterson, said acquiring the equipment was pretty much a school-wide project.

“Our Physical Education teachers put the key elements together,” Petersen said. “Then we took it to an English teacher who wrote it in the proposal format and put the polish on it.

“The school purchased the flooring and we acquired a shed and cleaned out the room. We probably have put $3,000 into the transformation. When they approached me in the beginning I was a little apprehensive, but when we got it I felt like we won the lottery.”

Daniel Line, a physical education instructor, said the machines have been a real asset to the school. He can run 44 students at a time through the different stations and they have responded real well to using the equipment.

It has changed the attitude of the students, they are excited to use the machines. When they are done, they are exhausted,” Line said. “And it came at no cost to the school district.”

The other two schools selected to receive the equipment were Clayton Middle School in Salt Lake and Roosevelt’s Eagle View Elementary.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

I agree to these terms.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.