Whenever new Lawton Public Schools Superintendent Neal Weaver sits down to eat a meal at home, he will be eating off a piece of LPS history.
Students in John Cullison’s construction trades classes at the Life Ready Center recently gifted Weaver with a TV tray made from oak salvaged from the MacArthur High School auditorium renovation project. Cullison said that Weaver saw a prototype of the TV trays during a tour of the Life Ready Center.
“He said, ‘That’s what I need,’” Cullison said. “I said, “I gotta build that and finish it out for him.’”
Cullison said he was gifted the oak, which was used in acoustical treatment on the auditorium walls, when a maintenance crew pulled up to his shop one day with a load of the slats and asked him if he wanted them. Cullison jumped at the opportunity for the free lumber, which is now stacked in various places throughout his shop.
But what to do with it?
Cullison threw the problem at his students, who came up with the idea of TV trays. Cullison brought a tray from home and his manufacturing class took it apart and documented the pieces. Then his students started making them.
But the first one was special. It was destined for the new superintendent.
Cullison said every student in all of his classes touched the TV tray in some way: some cut out the pieces, some sanded and some assembled. Cullison made staining it his personal project. A plaque, which the Media Center made, is attached to the bottom of the tray explaining its provenance.
Weaver was suitably impressed with the tray.
“That’s very cool. I appreciate that,” Weaver told the students assembled for the presentation, before shaking each student’s hand. He took a picture of the tray to send to his wife.
“It’s been a fun project,” Cullison said, adding that his students next year will probably make more of the trays to sell at the annual Lawton craft show.