OWEGO32ndlayer

Friday, October 16, 2009

(Dr. Bill Russell's comments, as delivered at halftime of the OFA-Dryden football game during the first-ever Friday Night Lights event on the OFA campus.)

Good evening. My name is Bill Russell, and I’m proud to be your superintendent of schools.

It’s my great pleasure to welcome you to the first Friday Night Lights here on our beautiful OFA campus. Lights in our stadium, our soccer field, and very soon, on our tennis courts, has been something this community has anticipated for a long time. I'm so pleased you could all turn out to celebrate our first athletic contests under the lights.

We would never have gotten to this point without the patient, hard work of a number of people, and I want to recognize them tonight.

When I first began working as your superintendent, I got a visit from a number of supporters of our athletic programs, saying they had been working to raise money to get lights on our fields and tennis courts. This past spring, they made a donation to the school district of more than $54,000, and it’s those funds that provided the cornerstone for this lighting project.

We should all be very grateful for the vision and efforts of Dave Evans, John Gatto, John Schmonsees, John Conklin, Marty Murphy, and Dr. Jerry West, who are here with us tonight, as well as the good work of Dean Smith, Irene Graven, and Steve Lounsbury. All of these folks worked with private donors and with both the Hyde Trust and the Mildred Faulkner Truman Foundation to raise this magnificent gift in support of this project and we owe them an everlasting debt of gratitude. Please join me in showing Owego’s appreciation for their great work.

Once we made the decision to go ahead with the lighting project, we put immense pressure on our architects, engineers, construction managers, and contractors to complete the project before our final home games of this fall season ... and they delivered magnificently.

Without their tremendous work, we would not be gathered here tonight, so I want to recognize our architects and engineers, Highland and Associates, represented tonight by principal architect Bill Flynn; and our construction managers from Bovis Lend Lease, especially our project manager Kevin Hoffman and his colleagues Bill Barbosa and Greg Levan.

But this project would never have reached this stage without the spectacular work of Nelcorp Electrical Contracting, owned by OFA’s very own Dean Rypkema. Dean and his crew delivered beyond our wildest hopes.

Please join me in thanking these folks for their outstanding work.

And thank all of you for your constant support of our students, our athletes, our programs and our schools. It’s that support that makes Owego Apalachin such a great district.


	Superintendent's Message
	Friday, October 16, 2009 (Dr. Bill Russell's comments, as delivered at halftime of the OFA-Dryden football game during the first-ever Friday Night Lights event on the OFA campus.) Good evening. My name is Bill Russell, and I’m proud to be your superintendent of schools. It’s my great pleasure to welcome you to the first Friday Night Lights here on our beautiful OFA campus. Lights in our stadium, our soccer field, and very soon, on our tennis courts, has been something this community has anticipated for a long time. I'm so pleased you could all turn out to celebrate our first athletic contests under the lights. We would never have gotten to this point without the patient, hard work of a number of people, and I want to recognize them tonight. When I first began working as your superintendent, I got a visit from a number of supporters of our athletic programs, saying they had been working to raise money to get lights on our fields and tennis courts. This past spring, they made a donation to the school district of more than $54,000, and it’s those funds that provided the cornerstone for this lighting project. We should all be very grateful for the vision and efforts of Dave Evans, John Gatto, John Schmonsees, John Conklin, Marty Murphy, and Dr. Jerry West, who are here with us tonight, as well as the good work of Dean Smith, Irene Graven, and Steve Lounsbury. All of these folks worked with private donors and with both the Hyde Trust and the Mildred Faulkner Truman Foundation to raise this magnificent gift in support of this project and we owe them an everlasting debt of gratitude. Please join me in showing Owego’s appreciation for their great work. Once we made the decision to go ahead with the lighting project, we put immense pressure on our architects, engineers, construction managers, and contractors to complete the project before our final home games of this fall season ... and they delivered magnificently. Without their tremendous work, we would not be gathered here tonight, so I want to recognize our architects and engineers, Highland and Associates, represented tonight by principal architect Bill Flynn; and our construction managers from Bovis Lend Lease, especially our project manager Kevin Hoffman and his colleagues Bill Barbosa and Greg Levan. But this project would never have reached this stage without the spectacular work of Nelcorp Electrical Contracting, owned by OFA’s very own Dean Rypkema. Dean and his crew delivered beyond our wildest hopes. Please join me in thanking these folks for their outstanding work. And thank all of you for your constant support of our students, our athletes, our programs and our schools. It’s that support that makes Owego Apalachin such a great district.