SIMI VALLEY : Gym Reopens Nearly 2 Years After Quake

The last touches of paint were still being dabbed onto the walls of the newly opened Simi Valley High School gymnasium Wednesday afternoon, hours before its dedication and nearly two years after the Northridge earthquake forced its closure.

Since the Jan. 17, 1994, earthquake, students have held rallies outdoors and used cross-town rival Royal High School’s gymnasium for basketball games.

The arrangement was awkward for everyone, said Simi Valley Student Body President Joseph Reid, a 17-year-old senior.

“Especially whenever we played Royal,” Reid said. “We never had the advantage of home turf.”

The last pep rally in the gym that Reid remembers was in the fall of 1993.

All that will change now that work crews have completed the estimated $3.5 million worth of repairs to the gym and a nearby multipurpose room.

A few basketball games already have been held in the facility, but school officials waited until Wednesday night for a formal dedication.

Before the ceremony, the school’s junior varsity basketball team warmed up in shirts and ties for an exhibition game. Players shot hoops in their socks, removing street shoes to protect the gym’s shiny new, blond wood floor.

The gym also got a new set of bleachers, said Dr. Robert Thompson, the school’s director of student activities.

Only a few hours before the ceremony was to begin, students taped up posters announcing the dedication, and workers painted the gym’s lobby. A few cheerleaders practiced their routines in front of the bleachers.

“It has a new paint job, a new floor and bleachers,” Thompson said. “It looks very clean and airy.”