North receives video board, student involvement encouraged

By staff writer Roshae Hemmings

Along with the new school year, comes numerous changes including new policies, programs, teachers and students. One of the biggest changes to North debuted on Sept. 11 on the football field during the varsity football game against Rockwood Summit. Kelly Sports Properties and the Parkway School District teamed up to provide brand new video boards to all Parkway high schools.
Sophomore JaTonne Terry said, “It looks really cool and is effective for halftime shows and replays.”
During a Jan. 14 meeting, Parkway School Board officials agreed to take Kelly Sports Properties up on their offer to help generate funds for MSHSAA teams and activities through the use of advertisements. While some of these advertisements will be displayed as static advertisements on the side of the video on the board itself, the majority of them will be broadcasted throughout sporting events such as football games on the screen. Other advertisements will be placed in programs highlighting the team and sold at each game.
With this new process soon to be exercised at all Parkway high schools, the process of fundraising will be reduced.
Kelly Sports Properties predicts that the advertising will bring in $750,000 in revenue over the next five years once the scoreboard is completely paid for.
Despite the money that the board will bring over the next few years, some students believe that the advertising revenue should be distributed to academic causes in addition to athletics and activities.
Sophomore Noah Epstein believes that the money made from the board should be put forward to help make changes and additions to the school.
“I believe we could’ve used that money to better our education, [rather] than something for our football team because that videoboard will only be used a couple of times a year when we could be making little changes to the school to make our environment a better place to learn,” said Epstein.
While some coaches and teams could potentially raise an eyebrow at this new concept, cross country coach Scott Kreher said, “You can read it two ways…freedom from choosing or its the restriction of the policy.”
The introduction of the new board is hoped to bring more energy to the games, as well as help to get staff and students involved.
“We’re going to start small, and we’ll learn and build from there,” said athletic director Kris Kellams. “Eventually, it will be quite a production, but at the very beginning,
we’ll have cameras filming as the game’s going. Students will be trained on the cameras to film. It’s our hope that we get more students involved with this, but right now the adults are being trained. Maybe by next spring or this year, there will be more students involved.”
Students are also encouraged to show
Workers use a crane to put the new videoboard in place. The construction of the board was completed on Aug. 31, followed by testing on Sept. 1.
The new videoboard displays the football game on Sept. 11 of the Parkway North Vikings versus the Rockwood Summit Falcons. A portion of the advertisement renevue will help fund North athletic programs.
off their writing skills by writing previews and reviews of the games. These pieces, along with game schedules, roster and scorecards, will be included in programs that will be sold at the games. The revenue from these will also help fund the school’s athletes and the athletic programs by getting information and recognition out to the public.
Along with the excitement of the new installment, there has also been some hesitation. Students and administrators affiliated with other game day entertainment such as marching band, cheer, and Vikettes are worried that the displaying of ads on the big screen will defer from the time that these groups will have to perform during the game.
“I’m in the band, and we have a very set and specific amount of time that we have to play. We don’t get to deviate from that. If there are any small parts that we used to play or small things we used to do, we can’t do those anymore because we aren’t allowed to play at these specific times,” said junior Zach Weinrich.
Kellams is certain that these programs will remain an important part of Friday nights. She said, “We’ve been watching for the end of the season last year and the first game this year, and there’s a lot of time where nothing’s happening. We just have to coordinate. The programs will not be cut.”
The addition of the new videoboard is making waves in the North community, and will soon do the same at the other Parkway high schools. While there is a learning curve that comes with the board, there is one thing that Kellams asks. “The community has to be patient while we learn. It will not be a polished production in the beginning.”