Danville Public Schools held a ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday morning for the new track at George Washington High School. GW will host their first track meet on Wednesday at 5 pm.

GW will also host the Piedmont District Championship meet on May 17 and then host the Regional Championship meet on May 23.

Galileo High School will also host home meets at the new track. The track is also NCAA certified and will be the home of the Averett University track team.

The new track was made possible by Danville City Council sitting aside $1.3 million a few years ago. The city then received money from Caesars Virginia and invested another $1.3 million for the track.

During the ceremony Vice Mayor Dr. Gary Miller noted that the new track will help boost the local economy.

“Even during a recession people spend money on sports,” said Miller, “people come to these AAU meets, they come to tournaments, they come to district meets…they bring their families. The kids are here, the families are here… they spend money, stay in our hotels, and the city does well.”

The track is part of an $81 million renovation at GW. The renovations also include a new 2,500 seat gymnasium, new office space, new classrooms, and a renovated ninth grade academy.

Former GW athlete and coach Kenny Lewis also spoke about the importance of the new track and highlighted how much track can help all athletes.

“One prime example is Herman Moore, who was a second round pick of the Detroit Lions,” said Lewis, “when I was coaching here Herman came through and we asked him to come out and high jump for us. He came out and high jumped and I’ve seen him jump seven feet and a quarter-inch and it built up his confidence so much that he developed the alley-oop in football and guess what it translated into…millions after a while. I’ll say to our athletes we are doing this all for you.”

The construction work for the track was done by The Daniel Group.