From The Citizen, July 17, 2004

New scoreboard for District Stadium

By: CHUCK HLAVA , Citizen Staff

New structure to replace one 30 years old

Score(board) one for football fans, teams and coaches of Clear Creek ISD's three high schools.
A new multi-functioning scoreboard will replace the old miss-functioning scoreboard in District Stadium. That state-of-the-art structure will go very nicely with the stadium's new playing field, on which work is progressing nicely. Call it the new turf and board.
At a regular meeting on Thursday, the CCISD Board of Trustees officially gave Spectrum, Inc., the go-ahead to build the new scoreboard. Target date for completion is Aug. 23.
The icing on the cake for CCISD is the fact that despite the scoreboard's $160,000 price tag, it won't cost the district a single penny, at least on paper.
That's because Spectrum is also in the process of soliciting vendors to advertise on the scrolling part of the scoreboard. Enough advertisers translates to no district outlay of monies for the project, plus it would mean future revenue for CCISD from the ads.
While getting enough advertisers to pay for the initial cost of the scoreboard is a work in progress, Spectrum's Jim Bishop is convinced that enough space will be sold to pay for it.
"We are in the process of securing sponsorships and are confident that we have people who are interested," Bishop said. "I can't say who they are right now because nothing has been finalized. We have no firm commitment but we are working toward that."
Spectrum didn't waste any time to get started following the Board of Trustees unanimous vote. Preliminary work began on Friday.
Actually, Spectrum and CCISD have had a good long relationship. It was Spectrum that installed the current scoreboard more than 30 years ago. The district will be very happy if this new one lasts as long.
The new scoreboard will be 32-feet wide and 10-feet tall. Aside from the obligatory clock and score space, it will have the three CCISD mascot names (Falcons, Wildcats, Wolverines) permanently painted on the face of the board. The two teams names playing that day can be programmed from the pressbox onto the scoreboard.
Bishop doesn't envision any problem building the structure.
"We will have the basic scoreboard up before the Aug. 23 deadline date," he said.
District Stadium's new look will be ready for the first football game of the season, which is Aug. 27 when Clear Creek hosts Friendswood.
Originally, the scoreboard proposal went up before the Board of Trustees on May 25, but hit an immediate snag.
The administration had proposed and recommended that Olen Williams, Inc., distributor of TRANS-LUX Fair-Play Scoreboards, be allowed to, "Carry out a turnkey project to include soliciting advertisers, building and installing the new scoreboard."
But the trustees objected that this work was basically handed to the Williams firm without benefit of a normal bidding process. The trustees also found fault with a few other aspects, some of which might have forced the district to come up with some money. All in all, it clouded the proposal.
After a question and answer session between trustees and CCISD Athletic Director Bill Daws, Mike Perricone and Fair Play representative Troy Burns, the trustees opted to send the whole thing back to the administration to: submit RFPs and go through the bid process and then go back to the board. That motion passed unanimously.
The district then received three bids, evaluating each one carefully. As Director of Athletics, Daws, along with the Director of Purchasing (interim) and the Scoreboard Evaluation Committee then recommended to the board that Spectrum be approved.