Wodonga Senior Secondary College gets new stadium, revamped hall

Basketball and volleyball players bounded around the pristine court before performers of the Flying Fruit Fly Circus dazzled students and visiting politicians with their acrobatics.

The show was all part of the opening of a dual court stadium and Galvin Hall upgrade at Wodonga Senior Secondary College on Tuesday morning, August 15.

College executive principal Vern Hilditch said the path to achieving the project was lumpy, with funding rejections and a laborious process involving more than 2000 emails.

"In 2012 we began the planning and engagement," he told students. "We applied through Wodonga Council to seek their support for a Department of Sport and Recreation Better Indoor Stadiums dollar-for-dollar funding grant without success.

"In 2019, an election commitment was made to provide $100 million to projects, and in the seat of Indi $5 million dollars was to assist our school with the refurbishment of Galvin Hall and to build a two-court stadium for the school and the community.

"What we see today was not a quick process ... together with the contribution of $3.7 million from the school council and over 2000 emails later we now have these phenomenal facilities available to our students and the community to use."

Senator for Victoria Linda White told the crowd the new stadium and refurbishment went beyond the basics of good school management.

"While good classrooms of high quality teaching and learning areas are essential to providing kids with a good education, it's the extra curricular activities like sport, music and drama, that grow our culture, grow our kids sense of self and also make learning and school fun," she said.

Indi MP Helen Haines echoed Senator White's sentiments.

"This is not only for the benefit of our students, but for the benefit of our fantastic Wodonga Brass band and I can see a couple of representatives over there for the Flying Fruit Fly circus, for the volleyball association and and many other community groups that will be utilising this facility," Dr Haines said.

After being entertained by members of Wodonga Brass and students with a rendition of Stevie Wonder's Superstition, Dr Haines said: "What we have here is a strong educational culture. And the opportunity that comes from having facilities like this to bring in kids from all backgrounds, skills and talents and develop them is really powerful."

In August 2021 Joss Construction started engaging Border tradies to finish the project. The dual court stadium includes retractable seating, toilet and change rooms, a kiosk space, umpires' rooms, storerooms, first aid rooms, a classroom and a gym area.

The refurbished Galvin Hall, which was built in the 1970s, can now be used as a theatre space for college, local and visiting productions.

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