Seneca School District Breaks Ground on New Athletic Complex

(SENECA, Mo.) It’s a big day today for the Seneca School District. Dirt was moved and something pretty big will replace it.

Ground was formally broken on Friday for a new 16-acre, $3 million facility that includes a track, baseball and softball field. The site is located at State Highway U and Bethel Road in Seneca, just north of town. The land has been owned by the district for decades, but it wasn’t until the passage of a no-tax increase bond issue in November 2020 that there was money to cover the construction cost. Superintendent Brandon Eggleston says the baseball and softball fields will replace the current ones which are in a flood plain.

“Our fields, they’re not district owned and they’re actually in Oklahoma, and so what the issue there is the lights are beyond repair and we had to take those down and every time it rains, it floods that complex which is a huge expense to get that together and usually in the course of a spring season, you lose your season,” Eggleston.

“So this was a no-tax increase issue that our community voted on and passed overwhelmingly for our community and we just really appreciate our community’s support in getting this community issue passed,” says Seneca School Board President Matt Stewart.

Jaxson Graham says it will finally give students athletes a track of their own.

“As of right now, we just have a little stirp that both junior high and high school have to use, I’m pretty excited that next year we’ll have the opportunity to use an entire track both junior high and high school,” Graham says.

Construction is expected to start here on Monday and be finished sometime this August.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *