New chapel marquee completes year of renovation projects

Published Aug. 3, 2010
By Monica Mendoza
21st Space Wing Public Affairs staff writer

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Randall Kitchens, 21st Space Wing chaplain, and the staff at the Peterson Chapel have been waiting for a sign.

It arrived this summer and it's 8 feet tall and 11 feet wide - an electronic marquee.

The new marquee completes one year of $240,000 in renovation projects that brought the chapel's electronics, lighting and overall appearance into the modern age.

The renovation projects were originally slated to take three years to complete, but crews finished in just one year, Chaplain Kitchens said.

"It was a dungeon in the chapel," Chaplain Kitchens said. "Now, it is so bright and light."

The projects included installing twin screens in the sanctuary for presentations and new sound boards and speakers that would make dance-hall disc jockeys jealous.

The new set up allowed Chaplain Kitchens, who was deployed downrange this past winter, to deliver a holiday message to the Peterson congregation.

"The message played here at the Christmas service," he said.

The chapel kitchen was overhauled with new cabinets, a dishwasher and an ice maker that are used for the Deployed Family Dinners - which last year served 1,500 family members, Chaplain Kitchens said.

Other projects include transforming an old library into a conference room and an old storage room into a meditation room, which can also be used for family counseling.

Office space was opened up to let folks from different faiths work together, something more important to Chaplain Kitchens than any other aspect of the renovation project, he said.

"The Catholics were here and the Protestants were over there and there are a lot of things we need to coordinate together," Chaplain Kitchens said. "That was a mindset of the past, it is not the spirit of today."

The 21st Space Wing Chapel team recently was named the best medium-sized chapel in the Air Force with the Terence P. Finnegan Award. The 21st SW chapel, with its eight military staff members, serves 70,000 people in the wing's 41 units, 27 locations, six installations in seven countries. The chapel's facility improvement plan, and its early completion, were among the reasons the chapel was recognized.

In these past few months, the team had just been waiting on the marquee to top off the projects, said Tech. Sgt. Shayne Hyde, noncommissioned officer in charge of chapel readiness and resources. He worked on the project for the past year.

The chapel's old marquee, with its plastic interchangeable letters, faced in the direction of the old base exchange and many people saw its messages as they left the parking lot. But, since the base exchange moved to its new location, the marquee was hardly seen by the general public.

No more waiting, Sergeant Hyde said. Motorists entering from the west gate will see the sign.