Light-Tower Issues Cause School To Lose 70-Year Friday-Night Football Tradition

PittsburghLive.com, Bill Vidonic

Back in the 1940s, Burgettstown School District was one of the first local school systems to have lights at its high school stadium, its athletic director said this week.

But now, the football team will be playing four Saturday home games at Hill Memorial Stadium under the bright sunshine as the district solicits donations to replace four 70-foot, defective light poles. Burgettstown is one of several districts dealing with light poles, manufactured by a now-bankrupt Texas firm, that are falling apart.

“We enjoy Friday night football as much as anyone else, but it’s just not feasible right now,” Superintendent Deborah M. Jackson said. “With the budget cuts from the governor’s office, all schools are struggling. We just don’t have the additional $100,000 to put those lights back up.”

In May, the Burgettstown district established a fund to accept donations to pay for replacing the poles, which athletic director Jon Vallina estimated at $60,000. New lights atop those poles could add another $40,000 or so to the project, Vallina added. The district’s insurance won’t cover the costs.

Volunteers are sending out letters to alumni and local corporations, hoping to collect enough money to replace the poles.

At Bill Power Stadium in Uniontown, an 80-foot light pole collapsed during a storm onto empty bleachers on April 20, 2009.

The following July, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall for the poles, warning that some poles had cracked where welds joined the poles to bases. Inspectors found cracks in many other poles, so the federal government recalled 2,500 of them.

The manufacturer, Whitco Co. of Fort Worth, declared bankruptcy in 2006 and went out of business, so many agencies couldn’t sue to recover the cost of replacements.

On Aug. 24, the Gateway School Board authorized spending $112,777 to repair 23 light poles at the district’s baseball and softball fields; earlier estimates were triple that to replace the poles.

Monroeville has repaired several poles at a baseball field in the borough community park. In all, federal investigators identified 26 sites in Pennsylvania with defective poles, including Central Elementary School for the Big Beaver Falls School District in Beaver County.

That school district spent $28,000 to replace three poles at a baseball field, according to district officials.

Vallina said the poles in Burgettstown were installed nearly 10 years ago, as part of a $1.5 million renovation of the football stadium; the district couldn’t provide a breakdown as to how much it paid for the poles then.

Vallina said several local companies said they could repair the poles, but the district’s insurance company wouldn’t allow it because the companies couldn’t guarantee the work. The poles were taken down in February and March.

“We had no choice,” Vallina said. “We had to have them taken down, and the district just doesn’t have the money (to replace them).”

Vallina said the district hasn’t decided whether it will reuse the light fixtures, which are stacked up on the football field, or buy new ones.

He added that he hoped the project could be done next summer, before the 2012 football season.

“It all depends on the funding we get, how much support we get from alumni,” Vallina said.

Ann Marie Dupain, a parent with the Blue Devils Quarterback Club, the district’s booster organization, said her group has talked about fundraising, including hosting a band night, or spaghetti dinners, but wants to see how successful the letter campaign is.

“I think it’s very important. There’s not much out here to do,” Dupain said.

“Friday night football brings a lot to this little town. A lot of people seemed to be really upset when they found out there was no Friday night football. It’s a big deal to the kids.”