When putting a Band-Aid on the Titanic isn’t enough

Old is your powder-blue 1993 Nissan Quest minivan that still has French fries lodged under the seats from your cross-country trip to Disney World.
Vintage is the 1968 Shelby Cobra GT 500KR convertible that your dad passed down to you but you eventually had to sell after realizing cross-country trips to Disney World are difficult to accomplish in a two-seater.
Doug Kerr wants Municipal Stadium in Riverside Park to go from “old” to “vintage.”
In other words, turn the baby-carrier Quest into the baby-maker Shelby GT.
I’d call that a challenge.
But is it a challenge worth embracing in the first place?
For years, the citizens of Iola have debated whether they should renovate the 77-year-old football stadium or leave it be.
Why not take door No. 3? Tear it down and start over.
OK, now I know that’s an overly simplified solution to a more complicated issue. And yes, I realize you John Q. Taxpayer will have to front the bill for a new stadium. And yes, I also realize that telling you what to do with your money just after moving here a month ago is kind of an arrogant thing to do.
With that said, hear me out.
The current football stadium in Riverside Park was considered the top of its class back when it was constructed in 1938. In fact, the entire park complex was fitted as one of the best in all of southeast Kansas.
When the Works Progress Administration (WPA) installed a new ball park, they brought on B.T. Meskell, a 20-year groundskeeper veteran, to evaluate the facilities.
According to Meskell in a 1939 Iola Register article, Iola’s Riverside Park had “better soil, better drainage and a larger area than the Yankees home field.”
Anyone who was here during 2007 or any major storm can attest that Meskell’s evaluation no longer holds water.
And why should it? It’s been 77 years.
If you leave anything out for 77 years without a major-league type of grounds crew available, you’re going to see some wear and tear.
Wrigley Field has been operational since 1914, and the beloved stadium has gotten facelift after facelift since then. Still, there were concrete blocks falling from the grandstands just a few years ago. The building still found a way to crumble despite some of the most watchful upkeep available. So it makes sense that Iola Municipal Stadium is no longer the facility that it was back in 1938.
It makes sense that the storage capability of the stadium is so poor that Kerr and his team have to keep their equipment at the school until they need it at the field.
It makes sense that the locker rooms are susceptible to flooding because it’s at the bottom of the bathtub that is Riverside Park.
It makes sense that 1938 Iola didn’t think to put in a visitor’s grandstand, a full concession stand or a state-of-the-art scoreboard.
But it doesn’t makes sense that 2015 Iola has to simply put up with all of it year after year.
I haven’t been here long at all, but I’ve seen Humboldt High’s athletic facilities and I’ve seen Fort Scott’s Adam LaRoche Baseball Complex — both of which are more than capable of hosting state tournaments.
Those stadiums have the opportunity to bring their communities more revenue and more people. Iola’s stadium doesn’t.
Even if you put aside the fact that a new stadium would serve as a valuable investment for the city, you should still recognize the fact that a proud sports community like this one deserves better.
“Nothing ever stands still, it is against the laws of nature, we must either go forward or backward, that is true of a town or community as well.”
Mrs. A.G. Speegle wrote that in a letter to the Iola Register back on June 1, 1938. It was the day before the vote concerning the new facilities at Riverside Park.
Some 578 people voted to say no to the stadiums and improvements. But Mrs. Speegle was one of 1,073 to say yes.
She believed in having “some civic pride,” and constructing a new complex brought that to Iola more than three-quarters of a century ago.
With football as big and popular as it is now, a new stadium would be sure to bring this town some good ’ole civic pride once again.
“When the park is finished,” Mrs. Speegle continued, “we’ll have something to show the visitor from out of town besides Highland Cemetery and the ‘has beens’ of yesteryears.”
Isn’t it time we had something more to show?
More than a place to play football, a new stadium would become an icon for a town so passionate about its youth. It would represent a fresh start for the football program, a fresh start for Iola High and a fresh start for Iola.
This town embraces its history and its tradition, which is a fine trait to possess in a society that has seemed to cast aside the achievements of generations before. But I’m not asking you to forget the past.
I’m asking you to create a new tradition for our future.
It sure beats trying to make a Shelby from a minivan.