LAKE MARY, Fla. – The school year at Lake Mary High School is starting off with some momentum. It's been five years in the making, but students returned to school Monday to find the brand new football field on campus completed.
The field sits off of main roads in Lake Mary, so all summer long people would stop and take a look at the project's progress.
"People are talking about it. It's a buzz," said Michael Kotkin, principal at Lake Mary High.
As if there wasn't already a buzz around Lake Mary with its high school football team coming off its first ever undefeated football season, the city now boasts a brand new synthetic turf field.
"Over the last month or so, five weeks of building it, we would literally have people standing at the fence, up in the bleachers watching it," said Kotkin.
The bleachers he mentions were put up by the school's current athletic director, Doug Peters, in 1981. That is just one example of how much pride, history and how many generations are involved in this makeover.
"The thing we're most proud about is not one cent of taxpayer money is going to this," said Doug Peters, Lake Mary High's athletic director.
Peters said this is also a big savings for the school. He said the school will save about $10,000 every year just on field paint and another $5,000 they used to spend on pesticides.
"This is going to change the landscape of the school and that's why we're excited because the kids, the community of Lake Mary, know that this is the Ram nation," said Kotkin.
The sports complex project cost $780,000. It was paid for by money raised by the booster club, alumni and 52 community sponsors. The school also got a new scoreboard and the stadium is being touched up. The next big install is a brand new rubberized track, which will be put down during winter break.