{gallery}01_28_10/oldpool{/gallery} The Powell Panther swim team practices in the PHS pool this week in preparation for this weekend's competition. The pool, which opened in 1956, will close for good this spring when the new aquatic center opens at Homesteader Park. Tribune photo by Don AmendPast swimmers and coaches invited to last meet in PHS pool After more than four decades of competitive swimming, the Powell High School pool will host its final high school meet in the PHS pool today (Thursday) when the Panthers entertain the Cody Broncs in their last home meet of the season.When Powell swimmers next host a meet, it will take place in the new Powell Aquatic Center, which is nearing completion at Homesteader Park.

In recognition of the pool's last hurrah, PHS is inviting all former PHS swimmers and coaches to attend the meet.

The PHS pool opened in summer 1956, and Powell High School established a Panther swimming team that school year. The Lady Panthers began competing in the late 1960s as well.

The Panthers and Lady Panthers have brought four state championships back to the pool, most recently by the Lady Panthers in 1994.

The Lady Panthers won back-to-back championships in 1987 and 1988 as well. The 1988 championship was notable because, later that same school year, the Panthers topped the boys' competition, winning the 1989 state championship.

Numerous individual champions have come out of the Powell pool over the years, most recently Jackson Miller, who won the 2009 backstroke title, and Cindy Shumway, winner of the 200 yard freestyle in 2006, who just edged out her Lady Panther teammate, Alex Wardwell.

Many PHS swimmers learned to swim in the pool, including Panther Tim Foley and Lady Panther Karen Roles, both of whom returned to coach Powell swimmers. For them, the last meet has special significance.

Foley, a member of the 1989 championship team and part of a relay team that still holds the school record, said he began swimming when he was 5 years old and swam “pretty much the year around.” He swam with the AAU (now USA) swim team, had his first coaching experience with that team when he was 16 and worked as a lifeguard.

“That pool played a big part in my life because I spent so much time there,” Foley said. “I made a lot of good friends from around the Big Horn Basin.”

As a Panther, Foley swam under former coach Ray Bieber, whom he later replaced as coach.

“It was great to swim for Ray and then come back as a coach and have him as a mentor,” Foley said.

Roles said she was scared and cried the first time she went in the pool, but she learned to swim there. While she didn't begin swimming competitively until she was in high school, she remembers when swimming was a regular part of the physical education curriculum. She went on to a successful career as a Lady Panther, and after returning to Powell “had good years as a coach.”

Both Roles and Foley remember fondly when the south wall of the pool was all windows, which Foley said was “kind of a neat thing.”

Roles said she understands why the windows were removed, but she was sorry to see them go.

“They took them out for good reasons, but then you felt like you were in a dungeon,” Roles said.

Roles also remembers when swimmers stashed their clothes in baskets rather than lockers while in the pool, and the time the pool hosted a “cockroach infestation.”

“When you took your clothes out of the baskets you had to shake them to get the bugs out before you put them on,” she said.

Roles said she will be sad when the pool closes for the last time, because it was so much a part of her life.

“For those of us who competed there, it was really like a like a second home,” she said. “It was so much a part of who you are.”

“It was a neat place for me, and there are a lot of things I remember fondly,” Foley said.