Another step in making the Pitman High School stadium a reality has been taken as the Turlock Lions Club donated $35,000 for the school to purchase and install a state-of-the-art electronic scoreboard. The donation was unanimously accepted by the Turlock Unified School District Board of Trustees at their last meeting on Tuesday.

The gift comes after funds were recently secured to install stadium lights and build a snack bar at the campus’ all-weather track and turf field.

“It’s a huge donation. It’s something that I don’t think we expected,” said Pitman athletic director Dustin Curtiss. “I was in utter shock. It’s very impressive on their end to contribute the whole thing. As an athletic department, I’m just extremely appreciative of their donation. It shows their commitment to the youth and the positive impact that sports play on our youth. We’re just so lucky that the Lions Club was happy to help with that.”

The current turf, all-weather field at the Pitman campus is surrounded by a brand new, rubber surfaced track. Despite there being no bleachers for spectators, it has played host to soccer matches, freshman-level football games and cross country events. To accommodate these events, the school had been using a small, mobile scoreboard that was rolled out to the field for every event.

“The fact that now we can have a real scoreboard out there where we can have soccer games, youth football games, freshman football games is amazing,” Curtiss said, “We’ve had to travel across town 15 minutes every game, and we don’t have to do that anymore, with the exception of JV and varsity, of course.”

In recent years, a barbecue pit and seating areas were built there, while a snack bar is being built and stadium lights are in the process of being installed.

Pitman High principal Angela Freeman said she attended a Lions Club meeting in early July to talk about the steps needed for the school to have their own stadium and ask for a donation. Before the day was even over, she received a call back from Turlock Lions director Ken Collins sharing the news that the organization was willing to pay for every penny of the scoreboard project.

“They had called that same night when I was already at home,” Freeman explained. “They put me on speaker phone in front of everybody to tell me that they were going to donate this $35,000, and I was speechless, and that doesn’t happen very often… It’s just a blessing and [we’re] so thankful for this group of Lions Club members.”

Collins was joined by seven other Lions Club members at Tuesday’s board meeting. He explained that the organization felt it was important for them to pay for a portion of the whole Pitman stadium project, as it will be something that kids and the greater Turlock community can take advantage of.

“We do so many things a year for the community. For the schools, the high schools, the college, and this was just another project for us,” Collins said. “We’re happy to do it and we’re glad to see it, and we’ll be happy when it’s up. This is something the kids and their families will use and enjoy. We’ll enjoy it too for years to come.”

Also attending the board meeting was Pitman head varsity football coach Eric Reza and several of his student-athletes.

“It’s a very big deal. It’s huge. And these kids deserve it,” he said. “They’ve been waiting a long time… I was genuinely shocked. I was surprised. To be able to raise this much money in this smaller community, it’s pretty cool.

“We just keep plugging away at this [stadium],” Reza continued. “Hopefully, at some point, we’ll have our own functioning stadium, but this is a step in the right direction. If we just keep moving forward, it’ll happen. It’s definitely a great day for everyone.”