Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Morgan-Washburn Stadium marked 50 years of hosting Lanett High’s home football games this past fall. If construction work goes as planned, it will start its next half-century being the home of the Panthers as a completely transformed place. A $1.5 million upgrade is underway to install a synthetic turf field, resurface the track, install new lighting and resurface the parking lot in front of the high school.

The work at the stadium is being done by River Region Sports Fields of Elmore, Alabama. River Region is finishing up some major work at Tallassee High and has taken on jobs for Auburn University, the University of Alabama, Troy University, the University of South Alabama and even the Dallas Cowboys.

The Lanett City Council recently agreed to provide $100,000 for the next five years for the project. The Lanett City School Board would be responsible for the rest of the funding.

Lanett Superintendent Jennifer Boyd and LHS Athletic Director Clifford Story have been looking at ways to upgrade the stadium’s playing surface for some time since the current field does not drain well in rainy periods.

There have been times when Lanett had to play home games out of town due to the field at Morgan-Washburn being in bad condition after a storm.

“We had to play a home game at Handley my first year here at Lanett,” head coach R.J. McDonald said.

Fortunately, Handley had a turf field and was not scheduled to play at home, so the Panthers were able to play Notasulga in Roanoke that night. Later on, another home game versus LaFayette was switched to Opelika. In the school’s 2017 state championship run, a third-round playoff game with Isabella was played at Ram Stadium due to the Morgan-Washburn field conditions.

The big question now is can all the work be done before the season opens on Aug. 29 when Lanett is scheduled to play Beulah at home.

The Lanett project has an estimated completion date of Aug. 1, and school leaders said River Region has an impressive record of finishing projects on time.

“They will re-do the playing surface, resurface the track and install LED lighting,” McDonald shared about the project. “We will also get the parking lot repaved. We will keep the present scoreboard. It’s not that old. We will also be getting new play clocks in the end zones. We are all really excited about this. We also want to thank the city for helping us with some of the funding. They have a good record of being counted on when we need them. They will be changing out the lighting for us.”

McDonald said it has been a major goal for the Lanett High athletic program to get this done.

“It’s a blessing to have .this,” he said. “It’s a dream come true for everyone with the Lanett High program. We will be one of few, if any, high schools in Alabama under the 4A classification to have anything like this. It will be a game-changer for our kids and will help our school a lot.”

The new field won’t be just for football and the boys. LHS soccer games will be played there and flag football debuting this fall will play there, too.

“The girls will be playing on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” McDonald said.

The field will be something any Lanett High supporter can be proud of. The Big L Panther head logo will be at midfield. The east end zone will have LANETT in big gold letters, and the word PANTHERS will be in the west end zone.

The field will be bright green year-round with visible white lines and yard markers all along the playing surface.

“We want this to be something for the entire community,” Story said. “We will make arrangements where people can come and walk on the track. The stadium lighting will be really nice, and it will be good to have a field that will hold up better to weather conditions than our present field has.”

The new field  is just one of several improvements coming to Lanett City Schools. The school buildings have new LED lighting and some new buses, including electric ones, are on the way.