This was the year the school was supposed to get AstroTurf installed, but money complications have made it delayed another year. This is quite a let down, because so many people would see the benefits of it. Gym class could actually use the field often, since they no longer could mess up the lines. Football players, cheerleaders, band, and color guard could also take advantage of the new turf.

There has been a committee, named the “Turf by 12” committee (named after AstroTurf 12) set up by the school board, that is working on installing AstroTurf into the football field. This committee includes, “a group of individuals of our alumni that wanted to come together for the fundraising effort for the turf by 12,” according to Mrs. Shoup.

“As far as the Turf by 12 committee goes, we still have a ways to go for fundraising, and we plan to have it finished by February of 2013. As far as the installing the actual turf, we believe the football team will be able to use the turf for next year’s football games,” Mr. Froehlich commented.

The price is a huge obstacle for the Turf by 12 Committee, and is the main reason why it hasn’t been a faster process. They had to scale back on the projected fundraising plans since the original is just too high of a goal to reach.

“Just to renovate the football field, with no renovations to the practice field or anything else, we’re looking at around $700,000. But, the original plan was to do some renovations to the stands and renovate the practice field, which would cost about one million dollars.” Mrs. Shoup said.

“I think that that goal is still there in the far future. We’ve come to a little bit of a standstill, and I think the economy has kind of affected those plans. The original goal of having it all finished by 2012 won’t work since, you know, that year is already here.” Mrs. Shoup said.

Most likely, it will be a while before anyone gets to see AstroTurf on the football field. There’s a huge goal to meet for the committee, and it will definitely take some time.