Dunham to build new gym by fall

The Dunham School is adding a new gymnasium at the front of its campus on Roy Emerson Drive that will be larger than the existing gym at the rear of campus, says head of school Bobby Welch. “Right now, visiting teams have to dress in one of our classrooms,” Welch says. “So it will eliminate that need.” The new gym also will be large enough to host two volleyball games playing at the same time, Welch says. Plans are for it to be completed by fall of 2013. Originally, Dunham’s master plan called for building a new gym for the lower school, Welch says. But as K-12 enrollment grew from 640 to “a little over 800” in recent years, Dunham decided to build the new gym for the middle and upper schools and keep the older gym for the lower school. “It’s not that we need a lot more seating space, but it will be a larger playing floor, meaning there will be more space around it,” Welch says. He spoke to Daily Report this morning from Beijing, China, where he is on a recruiting trip for international students. Not that it’s germane to the gym, but he says the weather there is beautiful: a high of 70 and a low of 40. —Adam Pearson