Sheridan Junior High School Celebrates Opening Of New Fitness Center

Some Sheridan Junior High School students could be in the schools’ new workout room a lot more often, provided they “don’t quit.”

Earlier this year it was announced that the school was one of three in Wyoming, selected to receive a state of the art $100,000 “Don’t Quit” fitness center, from the National Foundation for Governors’ Fitness Council.

Fitness icon Jake Steinfeld, who is known for his “Body By Jake” fitness campaign among other things, is the chairman of the council and was at the school on Wednesday (October 11th) to promote the campaign and attend the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new fitness center.

The Don’t Quit Fitness Center campaign has been going on for several years, with a few states being selected to enter in certain years, so that all 50 states are recognized.

This year Wyoming was selected, along with Montana, Iowa and Vermont. 

Students within the schools that entered had to be within the age range of 9-to-14 years old and had to submit a video to be considered.

Steinfeld says working out can have a positive effect on students both physically and mentally, but instead of teaching them how to do the exercise, he decided to take things a little bit further.

“It was basically something that I thought, ‘let’s give the schools the tools.’ Instead of creating a program, let’s put fitness equipment in a school. When you give a school the tool, it’s amazing to see what can happen. It just becomes the hub of the community and these kids, you see test scores go up, teenage pregnancy goes down, gang violence down, kids are healthy, they’re in school. It’s just awesome, just incredible kids and this is the next generation, we got to leave it better for them than we had it.” 

The other two Wyoming schools to be awarded fitness centers are the Arapaho School on the Wind River Indian Reservation and Lander Middle School.

Steinfeld says he will be at both of those places on Friday.

Three schools in Montana also won a new fitness center this year and the Elementary School in Lodge Grass was one of the three.