People dumped more than twice as much change into vending machines at East Rowan High School last year than at any other Rowan County high school, sales figures show.
The Rowan-Salisbury school system made $101,958 in 2000 from vending machine commissons in its five-year contract with Coca-Cola. That’s down slightly from $104,367 in 1999.
East Rowan High alone made $21,400 of that — far ahead of second-place Salisbury High School with $10,257.
Erwin Middle School — located beside East Rowan High — made more than twice as much off Coca-Cola sales than any other middle school: $7,047.
East Rowan Principal Dr. Harry Starr said the higher sales at his school are due to more machines. Many visitors come to walk around the track for exercise in the evening, where some machines are located. Students cannot buy soft drinks from the machines until after school.
“I’ve kidded the old superintendent that we’d like to have a drive down there (at the track) with a package store so people could drive through and pick up Cokes,” Starr said. “But the truth is, we just have more machines.”
But East Rowan High’s higher sales may be from more than just more machines, said Veotus Pauling, manager of the Salisbury Coca-Cola distribution plant.
“They do a better job of turning theirs on and off at the proper times,” he said “...They do better not just because of the number of machines. I think they just man their machines a little better.”
Overall beverage sales in Rowan County’s public schools were down slightly in 2000 from the previous year, according to figures released recently by the school system.
Gene Miller, assistant superintendent of operations, said that could be partly because of a colder winter.
“It’s definitely down,” he said. “It’s not where we thought it would be.”
In all, sales of Coca-Cola’s Fruitopia and fruit juice in school cafeterias dropped from 28,401 cases in 1999 to 22,321 in 2000.
The Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education signed its $3.2 million, five-year contract with Coca-Cola in a 4-3 vote. The school board picked Coke over bids from Pepsi for $2.8 million and from Salisbury-based Cheerwine for $2.5 million.
Now in its third year, the contract gives the Atlanta-based beverage maker the sole right to sell soft drinks in schools.
The contract provides money for schools in many ways.
Aside from commissions, which largely pay for textbooks, Coke gave $10,000 to the school system for scholarships and another $4,000 to advertise in school programs and yearbooks.
The company has replaced scoreboards in middle and high schools in exchange for advertising space on them. And, it has paid for educational software and donated its products for school events.
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