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HendersonCountyTurf.com |
| Artificial turf contractors |
| Medallion Athletics |
(The listing is for information. This website does not have a formal preference and whatever companies are used would be determined in bid process anyway.)
Welcome to HendersonCountyTurf.com, an advocacy
website for artificial turf at the Henderson County high schools.
Henderson County fields |
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| Buncombe and Haywood County fields | |||||||||||||
WE CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS! |
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VIDEO (June 21, 2010): Recent video of a school
that switched to eco-friendly GeoTurfUSA. Please note
what sport they are playing and how they like the new turf
over rubber-filled turf. |
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EDITORIAL (May 14, 2010): Turf benefits. (Hendersonville Times-News) HERE'S THE VIDEO! |
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| PICTURES (May 10, 2010): Pictures taken at Spartanburg High School. Was doing research on cooler-field technologies. Field by Mondo. The full photo album on our Facebook group. | |||||||||||||
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Compare Hendersonville High
School's field to Spartanburg High's...
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| PICTURES (May 4, 2010): Picture taken May 3 of the baseball field and football field at North Henderson. Note that North's football field is the "best" of the four high school football fields and it's shockingly bad compared to the baseball field. Overuse is the problem, artificial turf is the solution! | |||||||||||||
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| INFO (April 29, 2010): Facebook and Twitter pages now available. Please make sure to join the Facebook group. Thank you! | |||||||||||||
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VIDEO (April 28, 2010):
CALL TO ACTION! |
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INFO (April 25, 2010):
Mondo
Turf also has infill that promises cooler fields in
"eco-friendly" way.
(MondoWorldWide.com) This type field used in Spartanburg. (GlobeNewsWire.com) |
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| NEWS (April 20, 2010): Letter to the Editor about artificial turf. (Hendersonville Times) | |||||||||||||
| NEWS (April 6, 2010): New petition to get artificial turf at Henderson County high schools. If needed, we can use these petitions at football games this fall, since the football teams would obviously benefit greatly from the turf. But we can start now! | |||||||||||||
| NEWS (April 4, 2010): Transylvania Board adds turf to wish-list. (Transylvania Times) | |||||||||||||
| NEWS (March 26, 2010): Transylvania County discussing artificial turf at Brevard High School. (Transylvania Times-News) Close to 100 attended meeting wanting turf at Brevard High! | |||||||||||||
ARCHIVE (July 2007):
Story
on Buncombe County artificial turf funding. (AthleticBusiness.com)
Previously, Buncombe County Commissioners used
Certificates Of Participation ("COPs") to finance turf at
their high schools. That is still an option, although
using the N.C. Education Lottery Construction Fund is a
better one. The key point from the story now is the
fields were $580,000 each.
The Asheville field was funded separately for $600,000 by
the City of Asheville, which included new goalposts
(Hello? Hendersonville High?), two-toned turf, and
extensive graphics. Oh, and a look at what the fields
look like:
NEWS (Jan. 27, 2010): Artificial turf discussed at Henderson County Commission budget workshop! Just got back from the meeting. Commissioners were discussing capital projects like the proposed soccer complex in Fletcher. Issue was raised whether artificial turf would be a better investment. After some discussion and confusion on the cost of turf, it was suggested by Chairman Bill Moyer to have the topic on the agenda for a future meeting so staff can get more accurate numbers. Thanks to Commissioner Chuck McGrady for contacting me on the original soccer complex proposal, as it brought up the topic of artificial turf. He is the primary reason this issue is now up for consideration. Also thanks to Commission Mark Williams for suggesting if there were turf at the high schools to make sure there's a partnership between the schools and Parks and Recreation to have more programming there. (This is something advocated here.) |
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 (Photo: bctornados.com) |
NEWS (Jan. 25, 2010): Brevard College and Brevard High School need turf as badly as we do! It's not just Henderson County that needs artificial turf at our high schools. Brevard High School shares field with Brevard College. One football game got moved to Asheville High School due to heavy rain. Another game tore the football field all to heck and was called the "Mud Bowl." This is NOT a safe nor productive surface for any team sport! | ||||||||||||
| ARCHIVE (Originally published 5 1/2 years ago!) Green with envy. (Hendersonville Times-News) Local coaches comment on need for artificial turf. Note the costs of resodding and maintenance of grass fields, quoted as $15,000-$50,000 a year. If the savings from artificial was just $20,000 a field (a very low estimate), over 4 fields, that's $80,000 a year, or $800,000 over 10 years! One of three things could be done with the savings: 1. Put the savings towards the financing payments of the turf fields, reducing actual cost. 2. Give the money to the school system's general fund, which means a partial transfer in effect from the lottery construction fund to the general fund. 3. Save the money. Build up interest over 10 years and when the fields are replaced they have the money for the first couple of payments. | |||||||||||||
| NEWS (Jan. 19, 2010): AstroTurf another company to use cooler technology to reduce turf heat. | |||||||||||||
| NEWS (Jan. 7, 2010): Citrus Bowl field turns to mud during Capital One Bowl (Orlando Sentinel). For those who romanticize about how grass is always better than artificial turf. The grass field was in disgraceful condition due to overuse, misuse, and weather, and was subject of national ridicule. It is generally believed the bad field hurt Orlando's ended their chances of being in the United States World Cup bid as a host city. | |||||||||||||
| VIDEO of the disgraceful grass field at the Citrus Bowl (wftv.com). Even Penn State coaching legend Joe Paterno said the grass was too high and was worried about players already with leg problems. | |||||||||||||
| NEWS (Jan. 4, 2010): See our photos on our Facebook page! | |||||||||||||
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NEWS (Jan. 4, 2010): New "green"
artificial turf system may be helpful in expanding
outdoor sports due to much cooler (and organic) fill system.
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| NEWS (Jan. 4, 2010):
HendersonCountyTurf.com is launched. Please
be patient. We'll get information on this website as fast
as possible. Please let everyone know. |
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ABOUT HENDERSONCOUNTYTURF.COM |
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| Greetings Henderson County!
Thank you for visiting. I created HendersonCountyTurf.com as an advocacy and news website discussing the need for artificial turf at Henderson County high schools. Asheville, Avery, Buncombe, Cherokee, and Haywood high schools have it. Some of those systems have much less money than Henderson County. Appalachian State, Mars Hill, and Western Carolina also have it. Brevard schools and Brevard College are starting to talk about it themselves. We have been needing better recreation infrastructure for years. For example, the fields at Jackson Park are hopelessly inadequate and many soccer players have to play in leagues in Buncombe County, costing this county a lot of economic impact and tax revenue. However, can we afford to do what Asheville and Buncombe County has done, which is build soccer complexes AND install artificial turf at their high schools, leaving many fields greatly underutilized? No, we can't. We must be smarter than that. It seems to me that the high schools are more important to address than a complex for just one sport. I believe the most economically rational approach would be to have artificial turf at our high schools, but the difference being we really rent them out on weekends and the summer for soccer and other recreational sports, to get more "bang for the buck." The North Carolina Education Lottery provides a construction fund which could be used for this project (like in Haywood County for their two high schools), since it does indeed promote physical education for our kids. We should also use 21st Century technologies to provide cooler turf fields to get as many hours of use as possible. The opportunities that artificial turf could bring to Henderson County could be wonderful, but only we make real commitments on some of them BEFORE the funding is approved. Things like more women's sports in high school, more youth and adult soccer leagues and tournaments, etc. Artificial turf also offers opportunities for concerts and major political events in the future. Or, if Blue Ridge Community College were to add outdoor team sports like soccer or lacrosse, they could rent out one of our high school fields, since we'd have turf there. And we can pretty much avoid having to cancel, postpone, or move high school soccer games as had happened way too often in 2009. Once approved, this website will monitor the process of approving a bid and the construction of the turf fields, to let the public be aware so we get maximum value for our money. During the process, this website will give updates and provide information for the public and our elected officials as needed. Please join our Facebook group as well. We have materials on this website that I encourage you to forward to friends who may be in agreement. Again, thank you. Please help the effort to help ALL of the outdoor team sports in Henderson County. Dennis Justice HendersonCountyTurf.com |
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Copyright © 2010 HendersonCountyTurf.com. All Rights Reserved.
Address: 31 Tamis Lane, Fletcher, NC 28732 Phone: (828) 681-0391 E-mail: wncsport@aol.com
All photos by Dennis Justice unless otherwise noted.