The Guthrie County Regional Airport is closed to aircraft for the next few months, though it has nothing to do with a certain pandemic.

Work is underway for their runway reconstruction project for which they received a $3.8 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration with an added 10 percent in tax levies given from the County and the Cities of Panora and Guthrie Center who form the Airport Authority. This will be the first major renovation for the runway since it’s construction in over 30 years, and after the last couple years of changes within the Authority Board, applying for the grant, and collaborating with the stakeholders to get the required match, Board Chair Marshall Burgess shares how he feels about the project taking flight, “It feels pretty good because we went through a lot trying to get here, to get it approved through the County and through the two cities. And really it was a lot of work, a lot of meetings, and everything but I’d have to look back on it and say it actually went pretty smooth for as quickly as we had to move on it.”

Godberson-Smith Construction of Ida Grove is the project contractor, and while they began work a few weeks after their intended April 1st start due to COVID-19 delays, Burgess is confident the runway will be complete by mid July.