David Leahy, president of the Friends of McCoy Society and a Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education trustee. (Photo Courtesy Chris Brown)

By Chris Brown

Sisters of Charity of St. Louis Centre

McCoy theatre and athletics centre not just for students, says trustee

Dec 7, 2021 | 3:00 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The Friends of McCoy Society is one small step closer to a big goal.

Back in the spring, the group announced plans to build a new theatre and athletics centre at Monsignor McCoy High School, to be named the Sisters of Charity of St. Louis Centre.

David Leahy, president of Friends of McCoy and a Catholic school board trustee, says the request for proposals closed a couple of weeks ago and they are now going through the submissions received.

Once a decision is made a pre-construction report will give a better picture of the total cost, which Leahy says is currently projected at $7 million.

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“The vision is to have a 280-seat theatre, 4,000-square-foot physical literacy space and a new locker room for the football team,” says Leahy. “The vision also includes a lot of community use for this facility. Our faith calls us to build community and we don’t want it to be dark come 4 o’clock. We want community groups accessing this space.”

The theatre will be key to plans the board of education has for students.

“Our goal is to build a program,” says Leahy. “We have a fine arts school at St. Michael’s, we have a fine arts academy at St. Mary’s which is an exceptional program and then we want to build that into McCoy. McCoy has strong fine arts teachers there now but we just want to be able to expand the program and offer the kids more options.”

He adds it’s not just musical theatre.

With a growing film industry in Alberta, they want to prepare students for the technical side too.

“There’s a major sound stage opening up in Calgary, a lot of film productions in southeastern Alberta and we see this as definitely a career path that we can support our students with.”

A capital campaign will start in the spring and fundraisers are being held, including a Christmas-themed one that ends tonight. More fundraisers will happen in the spring, including a 50/50 and potentially concerts.