New scoreboard coming to Veterans Field

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The scoreboard at Naugatuck High School’s Veterans Field stopped working properly last fall. The Board of Education is buying a new one with the help of a donation. –LUKE MARSHALL

NAUGATUCK — The scoreboard at Naugatuck High School’s Veterans Field will be replaced with the help of a local bank.

The new scoreboard will cost $22,000, Naugatuck High School Director of Athletics Brian Mariano said. Naugatuck-based Ion Bank has committed to donating $15,000 for the scoreboard, he said.

Superintendent of Schools Sharon Locke said the remaining $7,000 for the scoreboard will come from facility use fees the district collects and not from the budget.

The Board of Education last week approved the donation and new scoreboard for the turf field.

The scoreboard will feature the Ion Bank logo, which isn’t unprecedented in the district. The scoreboard at City Hill Middle School, which was also bought with the assistance of a donation from Ion Bank, has the bank’s logo on it.

Mariano said the right side of the Veterans Field scoreboard, which is over 20 years old, stopped working properly last fall.

“We were faced with either replacing the guts of the scoreboard or purchasing a new one,” Mariano said.

Mariano said school officials felt it was a better idea to replace the scoreboard, and reached out to Ion Bank to see if the bank would be interested in making a donation.

The new scoreboard, which is expected to last at least 30 years, will be the same size as the old one and installed in the same location. The scoreboard is on the far end of the field near the edge of school property that abuts the Mountview Shopping Plaza.

Officials considered installing the new scoreboard on the practice field that is next to the turf field and behind the school. Moving the scoreboard would have cost $37,000 and Ion Bank would have donated $25,000, according to Mariano.

Ultimately, officials opted not to move the scoreboard.

The district didn’t replace the scoreboard during the $81 million renovation project at the school, which included installing the turf field. The turf field was completed in the fall of 2013 and the entire project wrapped up in 2016.

Mariano said the scoreboard was working at the time, so school officials made the decision to leave it as it was. Mariano said he hoped to have the new scoreboard installed and operational by the fall.