By Michael Minnich
Tribune Sports Editor
mminnich@newstribune.info
KEYSER—Stop me if you've heard this before: by all accounts, Keyser High's new stadium will be ready for the first football game and the fall sports season.
But the race to actually complete the task seemingly is just beginning, with the press box, concession stand, field house, and utilities still on the to-do list.
“The water's not in. The power's not either. The equipment's sitting right up there [behind the press box]. They're putting it in, but it's not in yet,” said Keyser High Athletic Boosters president Gary Nelson, one of about a half-dozen people giving up a chunk of their weekend to work on the stadium.
“Weather's holding them up. They actually worked in the rain a little,” he said.
Mineral County Schools Superintendent Skip Hackworth said that the water "should be in soon, if it isn't already."
Hackworth said that a civil engineer was brought in to evaluate the situation, and that his suggestion to bring the water in from Pine Point rather than using a booster pump from the high school would allow for better water pressure and save money.
"The lights are up," Hackworth said. "The civil engineer has drawn the plans for a conduit for the electricity."
No plans for that conduit, or even for sidewalks, were in the original plan, Hackworth said. "The [original] plans weren't even sent to the fire marshal."
"No priorities were set early," Hackworth said of the development of the complex, which already includes baseball and softball fields.
"Each group started on their own individual projects," he said, noting that there wasn't a central person in charge, as well as the existence of many sport-specific booster clubs at Keyser.
On Sunday morning, volunteers worked in the steamy and damp conditions to prepare the concession stand for concrete pouring later this week; Nelson says that the field house pouring will likely be Tuesday.
“We don't have a lot of time, because of [the delay] in the blueprints,” Nelson said.
That delay, according to Hackworth, was due to the fact that the original plans had to be re-done.
"We started work on getting the new plans probably three years ago," he said in a phone interview on Sunday afternoon. "They weren't finished until last winter. The architect hadn't been paid until then."
The major obstacle in creating those blueprints and plans was the field house, Hackworth said.
The original plan was to build a reasonable, one-story structure near the end zone, but Hackworth said that "someone, whether it was the community, the school, the coaching staff, I wish I knew who" decided that a larger structure, located behind the press box, would be better.
A larger building meant that a sprinkler system and a fire alarm would have to be installed as well, Hackworth said.
According to Hackworth, there basically was no consolidated plan for the entire stadium, forcing the development of a structural engineering plan.
"In the future, we can dig something up and know where it is."
SPECS Incorporated of Cumberland "did an outstanding job, and quickly" to draw up the plans.
Shoddy work on the field house roof compelled Hackworth to get it re-done, which has also pushed back the schedule.
"When they put the roof on, they didn't put the insulation in properly," he said. "We got a local contractor to re-do it."
Hackworth confirmed that the concrete pouring was approved last Friday and that Mineral Fabrication will handle it this week.
The locker rooms "will be spartan" once they're ready, Hackworth said, with exhaust fans rather than an A/C system serving as air circulation "as a matter of budget."
“It's been frustrating. They waited too long to get us to do this stuff,” Nelson said.
At Tuesday's Board of Education meeting, Hackworth said that the press box was the main priority, and the only thing, excepting the water and the power, that was absolutely needed to open the stadium for football.
"We need the press box, which means we need electrical power," Hackworth said Sunday. "We're doing the trenching for the lines. It has to be done." A fire suppression system is also required.
"If we get the press box going, we'll be fine," he said. "We'll phase other things in."
Hackworth said that the fire suppression plans have to be submitted for approval and called that process "a routine matter." Then, he said, the fire alarm itself would have to be approved.
“We can't do anything with the press box," Nelson said. "The field house [concrete] is going to be poured first; that's priority number-one and this [the concession stand] is priority number two. You can't make any money without either one of them."
But where does that leave the soccer program, which has four home games scheduled before the football home opener against Northern on September 18?
“It will be ready for the first football home game. I don't know about soccer,” Nelson said.
Hackworth said that
since the field itself was ready, day games, especially on the weekend, were the likely solution should the complex not be ready for the August 21 soccer opener against Frankfort.
In a similar situation last year at Mountain Ridge, where the turf was installed but the rest of the facility wasn't complete, the home soccer schedule was altered so that the football team would officially open the stadium. That won't be the case here.
Hackworth addressed rumors at Tuesday's Board of Education meeting that Keyser may play some or all home games at Frankfort.
“There's no validation to any of those rumors ... none of that's been discussed,” Hackworth said Tuesday. “There's been no discussion about playing anywhere else.”
On Sunday over the phone, Hackworth said that although contingencies haven't been discussed, he always has to keep them in mind.
"I've been trying to look ahead," he said.
Nelson expressed concern about the bathroom situation at the stadium.
“The biggest thing is, you've got a multi-million dollar stadium and you're going to have twenty Port-a-Pots staring at you when you come up the hill," he said. "We've got two bathrooms with the plumbing in, and all you've got to do is pour the concrete and in a couple of weeks, we could have that up and running. But you're going to have green things sitting over there."
“You come up to a game and you see those things sitting there, and what's your first thought? Redneck football,” Nelson said. “You've got all these volunteers sitting here. People are here today to get this done. We'll be here to get those bathrooms done if you give us the money.”
The forerunner of the Campaign for Keyser High School, currently in charge of fundraising, was the Keyser High School Campaign Committee, run in conjunction with the Gridiron Club.
Heading up that original group was Bob Harman.
According to Harman, although the original group stopped fund raising and being active when the Keyser High School Campaign Committee was formed, the original group still has $5,000 for the doors on the concession stand.
"We have to wait until Mr. Hackworth pours the concrete floors before we can put up the doors," he said. Once that is done, the group can install the remaining memorial bricks which have already been bought and paid for."
"Our committee was told by [Keyser principal Charles] Wimer not to do any more fund raising about a year ago," he said. "I did sell a number of other bricks, however, to put on the side of the building."
The buy-a-brick campaign let people have bricks engraved in memory of loved ones or in honor of family members, friends, supporters of KHS, and others.
Harman said he cannot understand why Hackworth is taking so long.
"I've been waiting about two years to get this done," he said.
"Have I slowed it down? Probably," said Hackworth. "But I didn't do it intentionally. I want this to be done properly."
Harman also said it was not his idea to have such a large field house, but rather something comparable to the size of the building at Robert C. Byrd High School in Clarksburg.
"But they wanted it bigger, and then it went from one building to two buildings," he said, noting that the main building "went to the big colossal building with three floors" that they have now.
When asked who "they" were, he said Mr. Wimer and Keyser football coach Sean Biser.
"The whole thing was just poorly handled by the school people," he said.
Harman also said the original group's books, including the money earned in the Black and Gold Bash, was audited by Huber Michaels Accounting in Cumberland.
Financially, a lease/purchase agreement of about $2.2 million paid for the turf, the scoreboard, the bleachers, and other expenses, including the lights for the baseball field.
"There's a large debt there," Hackworth said. "We made our first payment in full this year...but fundraising has to get kicked back in."
As far as grants that have been secured: "$10-$15,000 doesn't go very far. The fire suppression system will cost approximately $73,000....the concrete, around $75,000."
And although many local businesses are offering their services at a reduced rate, "we don't expect people to do it for free," Hackworth said.
"We really need the community to come and help, to do things like lay block," Hackworth said. "Call me, call Mr. Wimer, call Leon Ravenscroft and say you want to help."
"I know where the buck stops," Hackworth said. "I've accepted it."
Liz Beavers and Richard Kerns contributed to this story.
