COMANCHE – A major milestone was recently reached in the construction of the Comanche ISD Special Event Center, on the campus of Comanche High School.

On July 31, the roof of the monolithic dome was inflated – but there is still plenty of work remaining, according to Comanche athletic director and head football coach Stephen Hermesmeyer.

“They broke ground last year during football season as far as doing all the ground work and that kind of stuff,” Hermesmeyer said. “It was a nice, slow process of getting all that built up. Then they started building the structure, it was back in April or May when they started laying the platforms and all the outside structure and July 31 they put the roof on.

“From what I understand now they’re inside finalizing that roof which will take several months. They’ve got to spray foam and put shotcrete and all different kinds of stuff in there. Once that’s done then they’ll come in, pour the concrete slab and start fixing the inside.”

As for the origins of creating the unique gymnasium, Hermesmeyer credited former Comanche ISD Superintendent Gary Speegle.

“Mr. Speegle is the one who presented the design to our board, the idea of a monolithic dome for energy efficiency purposes,” Hermesmeyer said. “They can be also used as a safety structure for bad weather. It’s a little bit cheaper than building a typical gym is what we were told. And we didn’t have to pass a bond to get it built. We used fund balanced money that the school had saved up.”

Hermesmeyer knew of only three other gymnasiums in the state similar to Comanche’s design – Italy, Crockett and Munday.

The 1,400-seat center will be the new home of Comanche High School basketball and volleyball, as well as numerous other activities.

“We’ll also be able to have district-wide pep rallies in there, and we’ll have graduation in there,” Hermesmeyer said. “We have a big Veterans Day program and in the past it’s been mainly just the high school that’s been allowed to come. Now we think it’s big enough that the majority of our whole district will be able to come to that as well.”

Hermesmeyer also expects the Comanche ISD Special Event Center to provide a significant boost to the local economy, thanks to more playoff games and potential future basketball tournaments.

“We’ve always been sitting here with people calling,” Hermesmeyer said. “We’re sitting in a centrally located area of Texas, but the problem is the gym we have now is not very big. People like to play in the nicer gyms that have back seatings on both sides and this will have back seatings not only on both sides but also in the ends.

“It’s going to be a good set up even for some of the Metroplex teams. If some of those gyms are full along the I-20 corridor, like Cisco and Eastland, if those gyms aren’t available maybe teams from Abilene or the Metroplex might want to swing down here to Comanche and meet. I think we’ll get a lot of looks.

“We also haven’t been able to host tournaments because we only had one high school gym so if we want to host a tournament we have two gyms pretty close together where we can do that.”

As for the opening date, Comanche ISD is targeting the end of the 2020-21 school year.

“We’re hoping if all goes well our senior class will graduate there this May,” Hermesmeyer said. “We’re hoping that will be our grand opening.”