West Liberty sports fans will have something new to cheer about next summer.
The West Liberty School Board approved the purchase of new digital scoreboards for the baseball and softball fields for $31,000 from Fair-Play Corporation at its Oct. 2 meeting.
“Fair-Play was the best product, best estimate we got,” said athletic director Adam Loria.
The district also purchased the boards in the high school gym from Fair-Play.
Loria added that the baseball scoreboard will be slightly larger than the softball one, because it is positioned 200 feet further back. “They’ll be identical, except for the size,” he said.
The boards will display the score, team names, hits and error count.
Board secretary Abby Ortiz received a question about whether the pitch count will be displayed on the boards. Loria said this stat was not required to be displayed at Iowa high school games, and thus would not appear on the new scoreboards. “That’s one more thing to get people confused by.”
Board president Jacob Burroughs asked if there would be a significant price increase to have the boards display more information or graphics, such as a video board. “Obviously, we want to be fiscally responsible, but this is kind of our opportunity to go big.”
Loria confirmed the price increase would have been considerable. “It would be awesome, but yeah,” he said. He added the district received an estimate from Daktronics, which made the scoreboard for the football field, that was approximately $42,000 higher than the Fair-Play estimate. “And that didn’t include a video board,” he said. “Anything with a video board, you’re talking significantly more. Probably in the $80,000 to $100,000 range.”
Burroughs also asked about advertising opportunities for the new scoreboards, and Loria said advertising panels could be added on later, if that was something the district decided to pursue.
Personnel
The board voted to accept the resignations of food service employee Amanda West and elementary paraprofessional Nicole Knipfer.
Airam Quiroz was hired as assistant football cheer coach, at a salary of $1,043.
The next board meeting will be Oct. 16 at 6 p.m.