Thursday morning was a huge day not just for Alpena High School and Wildcat Stadium, but for the local community as a ceremony was held to unveil the brand new, state of the art scoreboard that is now up and running at Wildcat Stadium.

“This is amazing to have this be a conceptual thing two years ago and now to see it reach fruition with all of the people involved,” Alpena athletic director Tim Storch said. “I knew when I came up here that this was a tremendous community, but I didn’t know how giving of a community it was. To see the generosity that so many individuals and businesses have shown to put in the time and effort to make this happen, will truly make this a jewel and put Alpena on the map,” Storch said.

The ongoing process began about two years ago when Storch became athletic director and reached out to a friend that works for corporate headquarters at Meijer and they helped get the project on board with a $30,000 donation and the process began to snowball from there as many other local businesses and shareholders along with a hardworking committee stepped up to make this project possible.

The plan originally started out as just a scoreboard, but it was later decided that a video board would be included that could eventually allow the scoreboard to be revenue producing. Along with the scoreboard and video board, a new sound system that will be added.

With the help of many area businesses, the project cost about $120,000 and a total of $170,000 was raised for the project.

“The committee worked pretty darn hard and we can’t thank the sponsors enough. We are extremely proud to see the final event. This community has always blown me away with their support,” Chuck Ingle said.

Ingle is part of the scoreboard committee which helped raise funds for the project and his employer, Edward Jones is one of the scoreboard’s sponsors.

The old scoreboard which dates back to the early 1980s will be covered with a smooth facing and all other donations from area businesses will be placed on the board similar to the sponsor logos on the new scoreboard. The old scoreboard will be turned into a donor/sponsor board for some of the businesses that were unable to get on the main scoreboard, but helped out in a way or would like to donate in the future.

The next project will be getting new lights added to the stadium as the current ones date back to the 1950s and there is hopes of this goal being accomplished sometime in the near future.

“The day couldn’t have went any better. Everything came together and to have everything up and running was just tremendous. I really feel that this will give not just the student-athletes, but the community as a whole something to feel proud of. Again, I can’t thank the community sponsors and everyone who had a hand in this enough for making this dream of mine come true,” Storch said.

Jonny Zawacki can be reached via email at jzawacki@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5690.