Westside High School’s new welcome center officially opened on Sept. 21. The Robert B Sturm Welcome Center is named after a Westside alumnus. Terry Hanna, developmental director for the Westside Community Schools Foundation, helped lead this project.

“I worked with [Superintendent] Mike Lucas and [Principal] Jay Opperman on what’s needed, and they [said] we need a more secure entrance for the day time,” Hanna said. “For guests and for students to come in and out. Instead of just leaving whenever they want to leave, now there’s a center point of where they can go. We’re big with marketing and branding the school, so now we’ve created this whole new welcome design.” 

Hanna said the goal of the Welcome Center is to make the high school more presentable, safe and welcoming.

“We want to make everyone feel more welcome and have students feel welcome to come to school in whatever they like to do,” Hanna said. “[It] doesn’t matter [what it is]: academics, singing, music, athletics.” 

Hanna also said the old entrance and exit procedure was not as effective as the procedure the new entrance provides.  

“In the past, there was a table, and so you would have to talk to them and then they’d have you swipe the computer,” Hanna said. “You’d have to put the name tag on, and then you wandered around for a little bit. It’s really important that everyone feels safe, especially nowadays.”

School Resource Officer Jeff Kilgore said the safety of the school is very important to him.

“Well, for me personally, it’s all about the safety of the school,” Kilgore said. “I had wanted to get involved because [in order to] stop an intruder from coming into the school you have to have one exit. One entry, one exit.”