NEW BLOOMFIELD, Mo. - A proposal by the New Bloomfield Football Boosters Club to start a school football program stalled Thursday with the Board of Education taking no action on the idea.
Mike Frese, president of the New Bloomfield Football Boosters Club, offered a plan to start a football program at the school. The first five years of the program would be financed entirely by donations from the club.
Frese wanted a commitment from the board to start a school football program if the booster club raised $100,000 in donations before the program started.
"It's practically impossible to raise money for a program that does not currently exist," Frese said.
Board President Gracia Backer said it probably would take the group some time to raise $100,000, and the board could not commit a future board.
Frese said he would be willing to come back and make the same proposal to a future board if the $100,000 is not raised within one year.
He said he checked costs with other school districts that started football programs and many of them agreed that $100,000 is more than enough to pay the cost of operating the program during the five-year period that would start as soon as $100,000 is raised by the booster club.
Frese said other schools starting a football program typically play all games at other schools. New Bloomfield, for example, could play its football games in early years at football fields in the Jefferson City area.
Board member Shawn Cockrum said at some point in the future the New Bloomfield School District would need to build its own football field with spectator seating.
When Cockrum asked Frese to develop a different proposal, Frese agreed to stop pressing for the proposal and told the board to move on to other matters and walked out of the room with no action taken on the Booster Club's proposal.
In other action, Superintendent David Tramel said the school is finally climbing out of the financial crisis it faced two years ago.
Tramel said he was making no promises but he expressed hope it will be possible next year to afford salary increases for administrators, teachers and other school employees.
High School Principal Susan Dockery said 40 seniors will graduate today and 75 percent of the graduating class will be going on to higher education.
Five percent of the graduating class will pursue a military career. The remaining 20 percent plan to get a job, receive technical training or are undecided at this point.
Dockery has resigned as principal at the end of the school year, and the Thursday night board meeting was her last as high school principal.
In behalf of the board, Backer commended her for her work at New Bloomfield and wished her well at her new school position as junior high principal in Lexington.
Jeremy Davidson, the current high school principal at the Dunklin R-5 School District in Herculaneum, has been hired to replace Dockery next month.