As the first fall sports season at Kingston High School wrapped up, the Kingston High School Athletic Boosters celebrated their first big accomplishment – the purchase of a new, state-of-the-art scoreboard for the playing field. The wireless scoreboard, which cost $20,000, is on its way and will soon be ready to install, thanks to four major sponsors who stepped up to fund it.
Thriftway, McDonalds, Sound Stoneworks and Kingston Lumber Millworks & Supply each signed up for a five-year sponsorship at a cost of $6,000 each and in return will have their logos featured on the scoreboard, which will be given to KHS and the North Kitsap School District who will install and maintain it.
At a membership meeting of the KHS Boosters Nov. 29, Boosters President Greg Wright moved quickly from praising efforts to procure the scoreboard to other funding needs for the athletic programs. At his invitation, KHS Principal Christy Cole, Vice Principal Reese Ande, NKSD Capital Projects Director Robin Shoemaker, NKSD Athletic Director Trish Olson, KHS Athletic Director Dan Novick and other coaches, as well as NKSD Board members Ed Strickland and Dan Delaney were on hand to clarify a long list of questions Wright had prepared as to the status of sports facilities.
Once students and athletes inhabited the new school and facilities, it became apparent that there are many basics still needed for sports teams to practice and compete at the school. Some of those, according to Wright, include lights on the playing field; portable restrooms for athletes on all fields; additional parking, covered dugouts, scoreboards, safety padding for the fence, bleachers and a concession stand for the baseball and fastpitch fields; and tennis courts. With the district recently entering into a joint-use agreement with the Public Facilities District for the North Kitsap Stadium, Boosters also questioned how much field time Kingston athletes will get.
While it was nearly unanimous that the first priority is obtaining lights for the million-dollar KHS field, Wright wanted to bring to the attention of NKSD administrators the many questions he’s been fielding from parents and unable to answer. For the most part, the Boosters, whose membership numbers about 100, got answers to their questions and support from the district to move forward in fund raising and rallying community support.
“I would say they’re on our side,” Wright said.
NKSD board member Ed Strickland responded to the Boosters’ overall concerns about lack of funds to complete the facilities.
“It was an intelligent guess to finance quite a few projects,” Strickland said, referring to the 2001 Capital Projects bond that funded construction of KHS and the renovation of other schools in the district. “We can’t overspend … we’ve got to be careful, but we all want to finish up Kingston as a complete high school.”
Other administrators and parents at the meeting said to remember that the facilities at North Kitsap High School took years to get in place and it’ll take patience to see through fulfilling the needs of Kingston athletes.
Shoemaker said additional funds may become available in late spring but in the meantime, the district is still working through costs that will be paid for by the bond, including the second phase of renovations at NKHS that are underway and a new portable building at Spectrum Community School.
Despite the challenges of the lack of facilities, the Boosters are happy with the money they’ve raised through a fall football camp, memberships and the sale of spirit gear, concessions and sponsorships. Besides the scoreboard, they’ve funded t-shirts for weight trainers, a Meals-on-Wheels program for when athletes have away games, a gas barbecue for football games and shirts for student athletic trainers. They are considering purchasing a concessions trailer that could be used during outdoor games and other events, and Wright is also securing sponsors for scoreboards on the baseball fields in hopes of having them in place by the spring season. Novick also requested funds to purchase a smaller scoreboard for wrestling matches in the KHS Commons.
The Kingston-North Kitsap Rotary Club is kicking off a fund-raising drive this month to raise the $200,000 needed to purchase lights for the field.
The Boosters and Novick will continue to negotiate use of the North Kitsap Stadium with the school district and PFD, and cobble together practice and game schedules until the KHS field lights are in place. In the meantime, the community is encouraged to step up to the plate and help the Boosters by “turning dollars into dreams.”
“We’ve kind of come to where the rubber hits the road,” Wright said.
To contact the Kingston High School Athletic Boosters and for information on sponsorships, e-mail to info@khsboosters.com, go to www.khsboosters.com or send mail to P.O. Box 1448, Kingston, WA, 98346.
