Bend High School prepared for a massive remodel Thursday, a process that will completely redesign one of the oldest schools in the city over the next four years.

Lockers had been removed from the walls.

Boxes littered the floor.

Classroom shelves were empty, ready to be removed.

Outside, the baseball field had already been torn up in preparation for its makeover. The school’s teams will play at Vince Genna Stadium for a few seasons, until a new field is created at a site on 15th Street, said district officials.

The remodel, paid for by a large chunk of the $249.7 million school bond passed in November 2022, will significantly improve Bend High’s safety and security for staff and students. Classrooms built in the 1950s will be replaced with new buildings. The school will gain a new entrance, main office, new classrooms, performing arts spaces and athletic areas.

“This project will be the single-largest project of the 2022 bond that was passed, and if I’m not mistaken, this will be the largest project that Bend-La Pine Schools has ever undertaken,” said Superintendent Steve Cook. “Hang in there, it’s gonna take time. When that day is over, this will be state-of-the-art facilities that will live for many generations to come.”

Going to class during construction

Construction will continue during the school year, and is expected to wrap up in August 2028.

The renovation will be a mix of new construction and remodeling. The school’s on-site Mosaic Community Health center will remain open throughout construction, but will ultimately be moved to a different part of the school as part of remodeling. The school will also receive updated locks as part of the remodel, which have been instituted throughout the district.

The school opened in 1956, but is actually in its fourth location, said Principal Chris Reese. Previously, the school occupied the building that is the current district office in downtown Bend.

When the bond passed, the project had an estimated cost of $148 million, though with escalating construction costs, the estimated cost is now $175 million to $180 million. The first phase was designed over the past year and a half, while the second and third phases will be designed this summer, said Scott Maben, the district’s communications director.

Cook, the superintendent, said the district has gotten creative in working out the logistics of how school will continue during such a major project. Built on 29 acres, Bend High’s lot is smaller than most high schools. While the first year of operations for the project has mostly been figured out, years two and three will be challenging, he said.

Memories of Bend High as it was

Bend High alumni have many memories of how the school used to be.

Linda Cohn, class of 1976, wrote in an email that Bend only had a population of 13,700 when she attended high school. She spent her freshman year at Cascade Junior High, which is now Cascade Middle School, before moving over to Bend High.

“For homecoming, we had a big bonfire out on Bruin Field, which is where my graduation ceremony was held in 1976,” she wrote. “In 1975, the boys’ basketball team made it to State and the town of Bend closed up and went to the state tournament in Portland.”

The summer before Cohn’s senior year, she and other students painted the cafeteria walls because they wanted to have something “festive…to spruce the place up while we ate lunch.”

Cohn was one of the editors of the school newspaper, the Bear Facts, and her article about the senior class taking over the city for the day was printed in The Bulletin.

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Barb Smiley, class of 1974, said she was one of six Bend High graduates in her family.

“Today I drive by the demolition site nearly daily on my way to work out at Larkspur Community Center and I can’t help but think about my time there,” she wrote in an email. “The majority of my time at Bend High I cherished as I am an artist and the art room was my positive outlet, as well as my involvement as a mediocre athlete with volleyball, basketball and tennis.”

In 1970, when she was in middle school, her older brother died while on an Advanced Placement Biology field trip to Sunset Bay in Coos Bay. He was a Bend High senior at the time. Art and sports helped her process her grief, she said.

“By the time I entered Bend High I was lucky to have great mentorship in my artistic pursuits and have great memories of good friends and really healthy artistic outlets to maneuver tenuous times for many in high school,” she wrote. “As our class gatherers to note our 50th class reunion this summer, we will all breathe a collective sigh as our old school becomes a new school.”