Trophies, Awards from Northeast High School Found in Trash Bin

LINCOLN–(KFOR/KOLN June 11)–A pile of trophies and awards at Lincoln Northeast High School were found tossed in a dumpster outside the building last Friday and Saturday.

It was made public through an anonymous post on the Northeast Alumni Facebook post and caused a lot of people to get upset. Apparently, most of the awards have been saved after people went to the dumpsters over the weekend. They were originally put in storage during a 2007 renovation of what is now the cafeteria and commons area outside of the Ed Johnson Gym on the north side of the building.

The directive for discarding the trophies and awards came from Lincoln Public Schools district administrators, not those at Northeast.

LPS Superintendent Dr. Paul Gausman told KFOR’s media partner, 10/11 News, he said up until this past week, the awards were in storage under the pool but were discarded to make room for pool renovation.

“Every person and organization has to decide from time to time what to do with old memorabilia,” Gausman said. “At some point, space runs out, and something must be done with those items.”

Dr. Gausman apologized on behalf of the district and said LPS will direct schools to follow a surplus process by sending older trophies to a distribution for auctioning to interested people.

“We have revisited our process, and moving forward; we will direct schools to follow our district surplus process by sending trophies to distribution, where they will be auctioned to interested parties,” Dr. Gausman said.

None of the trophies thrown out reportedly were any state championships in sports or other activities.  Among the other items disposed of were old football pads, lane ropes for the swimming pool, storage bins, shelves and other general items.