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ELKINS -- The first football game at the new Elkins High School stadium will take place Friday evening, despite the home opener being pushed back from last week because the stadium wasn't game-ready, officials said.
"That will be Elkins High School's first home football game at the stadium on the campus of Elkins High School," Randolph County Schools Superintendent Debra Schmidlen told the county Board of Education Tuesday evening. "That project is rolling along.
"I've talked to Ross (Ware, EHS athletic director) a couple times today," she added. "I was driving around the other night over the weekend and I was up there today, and they were really working hard. I mean, it's looking good, and those guys, the construction folks, are hard at it.
"Now, we didn't think we would have electricity in the press box, but we will, because we have two generators and I have about 200 feet of extra-duty, heavy-duty extension cords," Schmidlen said. "The goal is to get the generators away from the field.
"It's pretty exciting, it's looking really good, the lines are on the field," she noted.
Randolph County schools will be closed Friday, and the contest against North Marion will be the Elkins homecoming game, she said.
"This is the day that would've been off for the Forest Festival, but we decided that since the calendar was already set and approved, that we would just go ahead and have that day off," Schmidlen told the BOE.
The EHS Tigers were slated to host Grafton Oct. 1 in their first home game since 2019, but the game venue had to be moved to Grafton because EHS officials were still waiting on materials to arrive to finish the new stadium's construction.
Ground was broken on the new stadium project on Aug. 16.
Ware said the seating capacity for the new stadium will be 2,200 once the project is complete. That is just 200 seats less than Wimer Stadium's capacity.
The Elkins High School football team played every game on the road last season after Wimer Stadium was deemed unsafe for spectators. The Elkins Middle School softball field and the Tigers Valley High School baseball field also were deemed unsafe for spectators by the West Virginia Board of Risk and Insurance Management last year.
On May 4, the Randolph County Board of Education voted to approve a resolution enabling the county school system to enter into a lease purchase agreement with Citizens Bank of West Virginia, to provide funding for new bleachers to be built for EHS athletic programs, including football, baseball and band. As part of the bleacher project, county officials are relocating the home of EHS football from Wimer Stadium to Elkins High School's current location at Kennedy Drive off the Beverly Pike Five-lane.
In addition, funding will be used to complete bleacher projects for Tygarts Valley Middle-High School football, TVMHS baseball/softball and Elkins Middle School softball.
Stadium Solutions gave an estimate of approximately $957,000 to complete outdoor bleacher projects at the facilities. The lease purchase with Citizens Bank will be for a 10-year period for up to $1,140,000. The payments will be $128,720.43 per year.