Bubble Up!

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BILLINGS, Mont. – Over 70 volunteers from Billings and Montana State University Billings employees turned out Thursday to help install a new “Bubble” to cover the tennis courts.  The previous bubble had a tear in it and was deflated in August.

Members of the athletic department as well as volunteers from the community layered in warm clothes spent the better part of the afternoon helping remove parts of the old bubble and cover the courts with the new polyvinyl material.

After the new material was layered on the courts, over 40 people helped bolt the new three-section material into place.  The two seams joining the three sections were put into place, while members of the MSUB Facility Services staff began pushing 600 bolts and attaching them to metal rails that surround the venue.  The bolting process was finished Friday morning and inflated by noon.

This time around, the Tennis Bubble will have new energy-saver lights and it is a two-layer fabric membrane sandwiching a third layer of R-16 insulation, eight times more insulation rating than the previous R-2 rating of the old dome which had been in place for approximately seven years.

Fans interested in helping support the cost of the new tennis dome not covered by the Intercap loan, may contact Director of Athletics Dr. Gary Gray at 406-657-2282 or ggray@msubillings.edu.  Gray would like to raise another $50,000 for long-term maintenance of the new dome.

For more information and photos, please log on to http://www.billingsgazette.com/news/local/article_a75d32ca-eb32-11de-a0ae-001cc4c002e0.html

Portions of this story were taken from reporter Mary Pickett of the Billings Gazette.