BEEVILLE — On their first day of school, Moreno Middle School students were in for a surprise — when they went to the restroom.

For three weeks this summer, six students volunteered to transform the school’s six restrooms.

Under the supervision of Debra Hanus, the school’s gifted and talented coordinator, the six repainted and decorated them.

It wasn’t that easy.

“The sidings and doors of the stalls were painted with oil-based paint,” Hanus says. “You know how hard that is to sand?”

But changing the color was worth it.

“They did nothing for your skin tones,” one of the girl volunteers noted.

Hanus is more harsh: “They were pale, off-white, bluish, institutionally ugly.”

Not any more.

The walls of the boys’ bathrooms are brilliant, almost fluorescent lime green; the girls’ bathrooms are watermelon-colored, almost iridescent.

That’s not all.

Numerous examples of student art now is displayed in each of the six restrooms.

There’s more.

The students noticed that the only mirrors in the bathrooms were over the sink — a condition guaranteed to cause crowding.

So Hanus and her helpers installed more mirrors.

Still more.

In what Hanus says is a stroke of genius, the students mounted whiteboards with dry erase crayons beside each commode.

“I tell the students that by using the whiteboard, you might write “I♥Logan” in the morning but if that changes by the afternoon, they can easily erase it,” Hanus laughs.

So far, the restroom walls themselves are free of graffiti.

Bill Clough is a reporter at the Bee-Picayune and can be reached at 358-2550, ext. 122, or at beepic@mySouTex.com.