Company contest could light league’s new field

Granite City Electric awarding free lighting in random drawing

By Owen Boss

GARDNER — The Gardner Little League could possibly win free lighting for their field through Granite City Electric’s Field of Dreams competition. Gardner is one of 24 communities in the contest, and any town or city that gets more than 1,500 votes at the company’s Web site is instantly placed into a random drawing for the lights. Mayor Mark Hawke said the contest has already drawn a lot of local voters and the youth organization only needs several hundred more votes before Gardner is officially in the lottery. “This would be tremendous for the city of Gardner,” said Mr. Hawke. “Something like this is good for the kids it is a really great activity, and we already have 1,063 votes on the Web site. It would look fabulous from the highway and would certainly be a draw to the city.” One city official who played an intricate role in the development of a second playing field was Director of Planning and Development Robert Hubbard, who said the funding for lights would help dramatically because construction of the fields is not a city issue. “The league has the land and now they need to come up with the money to build the field,” said Mr. Hubbard. “The city’s contribution to this was the land itself and free lighting be a great help.” In order to enter the competition, each municipality had to submit an essay detailing why they needed the lighting. The essay for Gardner, which was written by Stanford H. Hartshorn, treasurer and project manager for the Little League, emphasizes the struggle the city has gone through to acquire a second field location, and how much the lights would mean to the league. “We have the largest youth organization in the city and we serve a wide age group of both boys and girls,” said Mr. Hartshorn. “And we are playing games every single night of the spring and summer.” According to Mr. Hartshorn, the new lights would have several positive effects on the league, including offering more games in a better community atmosphere. “It would allow us to double up the scheduling and there is no doubt about it that there is something romantic about baseball under the lights,” said Mr. Hartshorn. “What we want to encourage is families spending the evening down at the field to get an inexpensive summer and a nonadmission fee evening of entertainment. You don’t have to have a child in the program to enjoy these baseball games.” To vote, residents simply have to go http://www.granitecityelectric.com/special/survey and click on the link for Gardner. oboss@thegardnernews.com

Appeared on Page 1 on 8/26/2008 (Vol. 206 No. 202)