The Knoxville School Board approved a purchase of new shuttles, a shuttle cart, and starting blocks at their meeting last Monday.
The purchase will be for the Knoxville High School and Middle School track and field teams as the current shuttles and blocks have aged out, according to Activities Director Ryan Paulsen. The last time hurdles were bought was in the early 2000’s. The district received two bids for the purchase, with one coming from BSN sports for just shy of $20,000 and one from Dannco Inc. for $21,500. The school board approved the Dannco quote which was a bit more expensive and School Business Manager Craig Mobley said there were a couple of factors that went into that decision.
“Looking at the two bids, we did go with the bid that is just slightly higher just based on two reasons. One, the hurdles will come preassembled and we don’t have to take the time and the manpower to assemble 130 hurdles, and the second reason is just the turnaround time on the hurdles. Dannco was able to get those in 2-3 weeks rather than eight weeks that the other provider was, so that was the reasoning for that.”
The purchase includes 130 hurdles with a cart to transport them, and 16 starting blocks.