By Ryan Deal 

605 Sports

ALEXANDRIA — For the Hanson School District, it’s time to go out with the old and in with the new. 

The school district is set to undergo a $3.6 million project to renovate its football field and track and field facility. The project will include a new eight-lane track, a turf football field, new shot put and discus areas, among other items. 

The funding for the project is being provided through the school’s capital outlay fund. The school hopes to raise $500,000 through donations and grant awards to include track equipment, such as hurdles, high jump/pole vault pits, discus cages and starting blocks. The goal is to also include a turf field groomer/sweeper, storage shed for equipment, parking lot expansion and bleacher/press box expansion. It also includes new LED lights and the project is slated to be completed before the start of the 2022 football season. 

“It’s pretty amazing that we are going to be having something like this facility,” Hanson Athletic Director Jim Bridge said.

Hanson coach James Haskamp watches the action during a game this past season in Alexandria. (Rodney Haas / 605 Sports)
 

The current track and field surface is a seven-lane asphalt track and Bridge said the school hasn’t “hosted a track meet in 15 years at minimum, maybe longer and it was a junior high meet.”

But as Bridge noted, several schools in the area and state have undergone similar projects in recent years. The new Hanson track will be an all-weather, rubberized surface. 

“Everybody around us has a rubber track,” Bridge said. “It didn’t hurt with our (boys) track team winning the state track meet last year by one point and our football kind of has a resurgence going on. The history and tradition of some of that has always been a real key factor and a lot of those people are the ones leading the fundraising charge for some of those extra things.”

The football field will be slid 18 yards closer to the grandstand and Bridge said the school would have recrowned its field next year for around $300,000. A grass field requires constant maintenance, including fertilizing, watering and painting the field. So the school opted to include a turf field in the project, said Bridge. 

“It’s being done professionally and very elaborately in a way that it’s going to be a quality facility,” Bridge said.