By STEVE MORRISON
Niles Daily Star

It took years of planning and effort from quite a few individuals, but Wednesday afternoon was the culminating moment as Brandywine High School proudly hosted its first track and field event in 15 years on the renovated grounds of Selge Field.

Brandywine, Niles and Buchanan participated in the contest. School officials rejoiced at the results of long hours of volunteerism and dedicated fundraisers that enabled the school district to afford constructing a state of the art soccer, track and football facility for a fraction of the price that would have been spent had traditional construction costs been incurred.

Jim Curran, president of the Brandywine School Board, and his co-partner Tom Balint, a dedicated parent, expressed their appreciation for all the efforts of the many involved in the project, before a brief dedication ceremony midway through the track meet. The idea for the facility began about eight years ago.

Balint wanted to pay special tribute to the “Backyard Boyz,” a mass of students and other community members who donated free labor to the work. “You could (see) 30 people at a time out here working on any given day,” he recalled.

Curran and Balint credited the major construction and service companies with quality work and a fine sense of cooperation.

They expressed appreciation to Bob’s Landscaping, Wilton Fence Company, Reith-Riley, Arndt Asphalt, Red Hen Turf Farm, Pro Irrigation, Bill Messner Electric and Mikie Kachur for their smooth cooperation in the development of the project.

“From the school board perspective,” Curran began, “none of this would have been possible without passing those bonds. The first one was for $14 million and the second one was for about $5 million. Because we did such a good job of cost reduction (this was all made possible). Vance Stratton (athletic director) and Terry Borr (track coach) did the layout. So far it’s very positive. We wanted to build a nice facility that the community would be proud of, and I think we accomplished that.”

Buchanan track coach, Joe Austin, remarked that there was no place in the state like Brandywine’s athletic facility.

Stratton and former school board member, Phil Bozung, both heaped praise upon Marv Selge Jr. who cleared the land, while donating his equipment. They were especially appreciative of Watson’s Tree Service, Brett Crouch and Curan and Balint’s co-chairmanship of the endeavor.

In 2008, when bids for the track were too high for the completion of the project the school board backed off of the idea. Then Selge introduced a plan to include replacing the football field, adding a new track and creating a separate soccer field.

Stratton recalled the hard work of the Brandywine Schools Improvement Foundation, which raised funds to contribute $24,000 for a brand new scoreboard. He specified the Cat Tracks Run (Aug. 21) and the Annual Brandywine School Golf Outing (May 8) as major reasons for getting the necessary funding.

Stratton stated that if the traditional construction work had been all contracted, the cost of the site would have been near $1.2 million. However, because of the donated time, labor and equipment, the cost was only about $500,000. In the initial cost assessment, it would probably have cost $400,000 to replace the track all by itself.

“Officially, I want to thank all those people for all their dedication. The students at Brandywine are lucky to have all of those people supporting them,” commented Borr, a 20-year veteran of coaching Brandywine track. “I’ve seen a lot of kids go through our program that would have loved to experience (this track). I feel bad for them, but I hope they come out and support us and enjoy our great facility that our administration, board and community have put together.”