by Mark Milioni
It was an unusually quiet Tuesday evening at the Milioni house. I was getting ready to leave for patrol as a police officer for the city of Albion, my brothers were doing homework, and my mom was folding laundry when a slamming door interrupted the peace. My father stood there, disheveled, glasses askew, holding the steering wheel of my sweet 1976 Monte Carlo Coupe. He had hit a deer on his way home. The mechanic arrived, looked at the car, took his stubby cigar out of his mouth and declared, “It’s broke.” The car could not be repaired.
A few weeks ago, Chris Williams, the facilities director at BBC, came into my office with similar bad news about the boiler in the W. E. Dowell Fieldhouse. The boiler, which was installed in 1968 when the building was constructed, has been failing for many years. Except that Percy Phillips kept it running with duct tape and prayer. Chris met with the specialists to see what could be done. The diagnosis this time, “It’s broke.” The parts needed to repair it are no longer manufactured, and, even if they were, it still would not work.
The Fieldhouse is one of the most important buildings on our campus. It houses our cafeteria, our gymnasium, and serves as our auditorium during Fellowship Week. We must replace the heating and cooling system immediately in order to use this great building. The price tag is steep. The original bid was $1,000,000, but God is already at work. A local contractor and hospital have generously donated time and equipment, which brings the cost down to $500,000.
We will begin raising funds for this very necessary project in the next few weeks. This is something we must address immediately. Please pray for this project and consider how you can be involved.