RADFORD -- Members of the Radford High School Foundation say they won't give up the quest to save part of the old Belle Heth Elementary School for a varsity, junior varsity and little-league locker room.

But they're running out of time.

Abie Williams, the foundation's head, says school board members' decision to demolish the building despite his proposal to preserve a decade-old addition of the school as a locker room is short-sighted.

"It's about as short as the end of your finger right here," Williams said this week.

The school is next door to the campus of the Radford Recreation Center, which includes the ball field used by Radford High School, as well as recreational teams.

The school board unanimously voted June 9 to continue with its plans to tear down the entire school in July, once construction on a new building is complete. Williams and others have been quietly shopping a plan for the locker rooms since November, and they want to know why a discussion about the idea didn't take place earlier.

"I just don't know why the foundation didn't have a voice in this," Williams said.

He said he thinks keeping the building could save the city as much as $450,000 -- the foundation's estimate of what the wing is worth -- later. The idea is to keep the newer wing of the 50-year-old school, which housed music classrooms and has bathrooms and a separate ventilation system, "for much needed locker rooms for the RHS JV and Varsity Baseball teams, as well as serving some use for the Recreation Department programs," according to a message Williams sent in May to the foundation's baseball committee, Superintendent Chuck Bishop and school board member Lynn Burris.

He also suggested the foundation could help raise money to operate the locker rooms.

In the fall, Williams had also sent similar e-mails to foundation members, Bishop and Burris. He said he also talked up the idea behind-the-scenes to Radford City Council members and Mayor Tom Starnes.

Neither Williams nor other foundation members spoke publicly to the school board about the issue.

The main reason the board decided against keeping the wing is one of timing, school board Chairman Alvin Alexander said.

"I think it was a great idea, just the wrong time," Alexander said.

Had Williams and others talked to the school board before the construction for the new school began more than 18 months ago, things might have been different, he said.

"On a project that scale, if you go back and change the landscaping, you don't know what that's going to affect," he said.

The site of the old school is to become green space, including a ball field, additional multipurpose field and playground equipment.

Alexander directed additional questions about the decision to Bishop, who is out of the office this week. Other school employees also directed inquiries to Bishop.

"It's just something we voted to do," Alexander said.

The school's demolition is slated for July, after that contractors will regrade the land and put in the fields, said school board member Karen Gerlach. Changing that plan now would be too costly, Gerlach said.

"I think he [Williams] just thinks we're being stubborn, but we're not," she said.

One member of the foundation's baseball committee said he doesn't see that rationale. Bill Landes is a contractor and said changes to existing plans can easily be made.

"It's not over until that building is torn down," he said.

He said he also doesn't understand why the board never put the item on its agenda. In May, Bishop did ask board members publicly about the plan, and they balked at the idea then for many of the same reasons.

Gerlach said it was too late.

Starnes said he sees merit in the locker room proposal, too, but that he understand it's more complicated.

"I'm not sure how that would have looked," he said. "I'm sure they would have had to do some reconfiguration."

He said the current locker facilities for students are "not a very good process." Baseball players at the city's field either dress at the high school, more than a mile away, or use the recreation center.

Rec center staff often complain about that, Williams said, but he said he respects the board's decision as a "difference of opinion of the direction we should go."