Board approves updated scoreboards

by Mary Le Arneal
Published 4/26/23

The North Bend Central Board of Education held a special meeting April 21 at 8 a.m. for the purpose of approving the purchase and installation of new, updated scoreboards for the football and softball fields and Tiger Arena.

First the board took action to rescind the conditional approval taken at the April 10 board meeting.

The board then approved a funding agreement with the Fremont Area Community Foundation, representing the North Bend Booster Club. The district will purchase the scoreboards and the FACF/Booster Club will pay the district $315,065 over the next seven years, that being $63,000 a year. Of the revenue generated by the scoreboard advertising and sponsors, 100% will be paid to the district until the $315,065 has been paid off. After that the revenue will be shared by the club and district. This contract has been reviewed by Coady Pruett from KSB School Law out of Lincoln.

The board then approved the purchase of Daktronix equipment from Crouch Recreation, Inc. at the cost of $238,190 for the football video board, $138,508 for the basketball video board and $23,000 for the softball field.

NBC activities director Jon Baehr said the differences in prices not only had to do with size of the video boards but also the installation process, if they have sound or not, and if they had digital boards or not.

The construction, installation or site improvements needed to installation these boards were discussed. Booster Club president Rich Samuelson said that he has already had a number of local people offer in-kind donations to make a saving in this area. He estimated it could cost between $78,000 and $89,000 for the actual installation. The increased size of the football board merits special needs as does the coordination of the two basketball scoreboards. All these numbers will be on the quote but do not take into consideration the savings from in-kind donations.

Board member Bob Feurer said there had been some discussion that this solicitation of funds would take away from people donating to the North Bend Central Foundation.

“The two groups are very engaged to support kids,” interim superintendent Galen Boldt said. “The net effect on kids is incredible. Something to celebrate.”

Board member Justin Taylor noted that the funding is coming from different dollars as the video boards is seeing advertising dollars and the foundation seeks individuals donation.

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