All three Mathews County schools will finally have heating and air conditioning throughout the buildings (including the hallways), once HVAC improvements are undertaken this summer in Thomas Hunter Middle School.

“It’s a long time coming,” school superintendent Nancy Welch said after the school board approved a $399,900 bid from Atlantic Constructors Inc. of Richmond to perform the work. The board approved the revised bid during the May 16 meeting, which was held in the Mathews High School media center.

Atlantic Constructors supplied the only bid for the project. Initially, the project called for duct work to be installed between the school’s original roof and the metal roof that had been added to the building. Welch said that doing it this way would have been cost-prohibitive. Workers would have been able to stay up there so long, because of the heat, and cool air would have had to been pumped in.

She said that the left-hand side of the building (from entering the main doors...