If everything falls into place, Marion High School’s baseball and softball teams will play their home games with a new scoreboard starting next season.
The Marion Mustang Booster Club recently kicked off a fundraising campaign to come up with $35,000 to replace both scoreboards at the Marion Athletic Field.
Club president Luke Stuhr said the organization has raised a couple of thousand dollars for the project so far. He and club treasurer Carrie Aus attended the Marion/Tigerton football team’s first game of the season Aug. 20 to help spread the word about the effort.
“We just started our drive for it,” Stuhr said. “We’re trying to raise $35,000 for a new scoreboard for our softball and baseball fields. The softball field is dedicated to Debbie Malueg, and we have the John Bartelt Baseball Field. The goal is to have them in place for spring sports, which is going to come up really fast.”
Aus said the scoreboards are more than 20 years old.
“The parts and maintenance are hard to come by, they’re hard to maintain,” she said.
“The last five-plus years have been a struggle,” Stuhr said. “Some years we would not have (a scoreboard), some years we would be waiting on parts halfway through the season. The battery life is depleted, so we’d need to be plugged in all the time.”
Without a scoreboard, players, coaches and fans would be unaware of the score, inning and pitch count.
The club will do what it can to help save money, according to Stuhr.
“We’re going to try to use as much existing poles and electrical to save as much money as we possibly can,” he said. “The scoreboards are going to look fairly similar. We’re not looking at all the bells and whistles.”
The club had fliers available at the game’s concession stand that included a donation form. Sponsorship opportunities include platinum ($1,000 and up), gold ($750 to $999), silver ($500 to $749) and bronze ($250 to $499). Sponsors’ names will be displayed near each scoreboard.
Any other amounts will also be accepted.
Contact information for donating to the project can be found on the club’s Facebook page.
“The youth are the next generation here,” Stuhr said. “Everything we do is for the kids.”
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