Junction City ? Supt. Ronald Walker likens the expected influx of at least several hundred – and potentially thousands – of new students into the Geary County school district to children in a large family inviting friends for dinner.

“It’s just as easy to cook for 14 as it is for 12,” he said Wednesday.

There will be a few more minds for Walker’s district to feed in the coming months as thousands of soldiers arrive at Fort Riley. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to approve Pentagon plans to return the 1st Infantry Division headquarters to the post.

The Big Red One – dubbed such because its insignia has a red No. 1 on it – had its home at Fort Riley for 40 years before the headquarters moved to Germany in 1995.

In addition, a new infantry brigade is being formed that will meld into the 1st Infantry Division, and a helicopter battalion is moving in from Fort Campbell, Ky.

The changes will push Fort Riley’s military population from 11,500 to nearly 18,000. Army officials are telling state, community and education officials to anticipate that 55 percent to 60 percent of the soldiers will bring spouses and children.

That means hundreds of school children will begin arriving in the surrounding 15 school districts in the coming months. Army officials expect about 40 percent to 45 percent of the new soldiers and their families to live in Junction City and an additional 30 percent in Manhattan.

Jefferson Elementary School stands ready for more students at Fort Riley. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission approved plans to return the headquarters of the 1st Infantry Division to the Kansas post. The plan will add about 2,400 military and 440 civilian jobs to the post, and many of the new residents will be bringing school-age children.

“We know we will have a huge number of students coming in that January, February, March time frame,” Walker said.

Geary County’s enrollment peaked at 7,200 students in 1993-94, the year before the Big Red One packed up for Germany, and was 6,400 students last year.

The district was planning on an enrollment bump with the new brigade being formed. But the bump became a mountain when the Pentagon announced in May that the Big Red One was coming home.

“We had less than two months to plan,” Walker said.

Over the past decade, unused classrooms were converted to technology rooms. Now, many of those rooms in the district’s 13 elementary, two middle and one high school are being restored to handle the influx.

Junction City officials hired 41 new staff members for the 2005-06 school year, scattered throughout the district, including the five elementary and one middle school located at Fort Riley. Voters will be asked Oct. 18 to approve a $33 million bond issue to build two elementary schools and a middle school.

Though most the new students will be in elementary school, the Army plans to stabilize soldiers’ assignments at any one post. That means many could move through middle and high school in the area.