The Putnam County School Board has awarded a bid to repair the field lights at the Cornerstone Elementary Baseball Field.
Deputy Director of Schools Tim Martin said the school has had issues turning the lights on. Martin said after further investigation, the school system determined that the lights needed new wiring.
“We got some electricians to take a look, and it looks like the problem is just old wiring,” Martin said. “So the wiring that actually goes up to the poles, to the lights, just weather-damaged and worn out.”
The rewiring project will cost the school system an estimated $10,000. Martin said the hope is that the new wiring will be even longer than the current wiring.
“Van De Voorde Electric is going to go in there, and they will put actually weatherproof tracks on the poles and put new wiring going up to the lights,” Martin said. “Of course, the previous stuff lasted an awful lot of years, but I would expect this would last even longer.”
Martin said Upperman Middle School’s Baseball Team uses the field. Though often overlooked, Martin said projects like this are important to complete for the school system.
“Of course, we have a lot of community activities and a lot of students who play on all of our sports fields,” Martin said. “So that part is important to us. And also, those things are very expensive. So new lights, new poles, and things like that are very expensive. So it is important to us to keep them in good repair and keep them up and running as well as possible.”
Martin said the school system has not yet confirmed when the repairs will begin, but plans to complete the work while the field is not in use. The school board awarded the bid at its most recent meeting.