Summer at Ripon Unified is a busy time for Director of Maintenance & Operations Andy Strickland and his staff.

He provided an update at last month’s Ripon Unified school board meeting on the projects that have been underway following the last day of instructions for students.

Most of the early work has been at Colony Oak Elementary School, where the stage in the multi-purpose building was recently completed. Included was the rebuilding of the stairs to the stage along with handrails.

“The (stage curtains) were also cleaned and treated with a fire retardant,” Strickland said.

Colony Oak was also in need of landscape renovation. For that, Strickland’s staff started this week with the reseeding of the grounds with Bermuda grass.

He noted that a district-wide project that’s going on is the trimming of plants and trees at all of the RUSD campuses, with the most recent being done at Ripon High, Ripon Elementary, Weston Elementary and Harvest High.

RHS, in addition, had plumbing work conducted inside the band room coupled with the ongoing water extraction plant construction that’s taking place behind the baseball field.

Strickland and company also handled one unique project.

“We repaired the hotdog-rolling cooker (machine) used for our basketball tournament,” he said.