Billings County School Board awards bid

• Billings County School Board

Billings County School Board

Talk about it

MEDORA — The Billings County School Board awarded a bid to Pifer’s Auction and Realty to handle the sale of the former Fryburg School and property during its meeting at DeMores School in Medora Wednesday evening.

Fryburg School closed in 2000 due to dwindling enrollment.

It was also used in the making of a 2001 film “Wooly Boys,” according to the school district’s website.

Pifer’s bid was for a 7 percent buyer’s premium, which would leave advertising as the only cost to the school district.

An appraiser valued the property, including the school, a shop, lagoon and mobile home lots at $510,000, according to a previous Press article.

The Billings County Weed Board uses the shop and members questioned whether it would have a say in the sale during Wednesday’s meeting.

“We’d like to, at our next meeting, have a little more negotiating on it and see if we can continue to use that building or purchase the property with that building on it,” Billings County Commissioner Mike Kasian said.

Others said there is no other place to house the weed board and would like the shop severed from the sale and dealt with separately.

“Yeah, I mean I would like to see the community get the use out of it, too,” Baranko said. “We knew there was interest there. We’re not going to exclude that out of the deal.”

Some of the four companies who bid said the property should be sold in three different parcels anyway.

Representatives from Pifer’s said options exist, such stating the shop area is subject to prior sale to the weed board while negotiation is taking place.

“I would hate to see us sell this huge property to an oil company in Texas and then have nothing for our own people here in our state,” said Amanda Oster, a Medora resident. “If we can give them (the weed board) a large piece of property or transfer it to them, or whatever the case may be, to do that would be in the best interest of all of us.”

The board said it would continue discussions on how to handle the situation with the weed board.

The gymnasium is still being used, but costs to maintain the school drove the board’s decision to sell it.

“The sad thing is the gym gets used quite a bit,” School Board President Darren Baranko said after the meeting.

However, other facilities can be utilized instead of the gym after the sale, he added.

Tina Downing was the only school board member who voted against awarding the bid to Pifer’s and declined comment.

Tags: billings county school board, fryburg school, news