With a sense of amazement, people entered ST Paper Stadium in Oconto Falls for a dedication ceremony Sunday night. Some posed for photos under the entry arch welcoming them to the outdoor celebration the likes of which has not occurred in the city since the Memorial Field dedication in 1947.
The stadium shone with its newness, from the gleaming metal bleachers to the lush green grass and orange and black scoreboard.
“It’s really beautiful. It’s great to have this for the town,” said Cecelia (Moynihan) Jensen, who along with her husband, Jeffrey, and sister, Melissa Moynihan, were recognized as benefactors of the new stadium.
ST Paper Stadium, located south of Oconto Falls High School, had the excited feel of a Friday night football game — cheerleaders, pep band, the national anthem — but the first test of the stadium will come Friday when the Panthers take on Green Bay West.
Sunday night was not so much about competition as it was about cooperation.
“It’s a time to celebrate the community coming together,” former Oconto Falls School District Superintendent Dave Polashek said, in his opening comments, “and it really is a special time.”
The facility won the support of voters in $1.2 million referendum in August 2014 and gained benefactors, including $100,000 from ST Paper, as the project moved forward. Steve Lea, mill manager, represented ST Paper at Sunday’s dedication.
“It’s amazing we are here one year later,” said Jerry Moynihan, OFHS athletic director and stadium project manager.
“This is one example of where the community came together to put tools in the tool kit for our kids,” District Superintendent Dean Hess said.
About 400 people attended the dedication and nearly 20 cut the orange ribbon to mark the opening of the stadium. Among them were Marianne Rider. The football field bears the name of her late husband, Dan Rider, an OFHS math teacher and football coach.
“This is just surreal, the fact that my husband was honored. It’s going to be forever,” said Rider, whose husband passed away 20 years ago.
All four of the couple’s daughters — coming from Juneau, Alaska; Wheaton, Illinois; Seattle, Washington; and San Jose, California — and three of the eight grandchildren attended the dedication.
“Dan loved football, and he believed in team sports as a good growing-up experience for kids,” she said. “You win some, you lose some — he thought that was a really important lesson in life.”
The naming right were secured through a $50,000 donation by the Jensen family and and additional $1,000 from Melissa Moynihan.
Cecelia Jensen described Rider as “good at heart.”
“I just thought it was important to get his influence recognized on the field,” she said.
Also recognized was the family of Gary Just; the press box bears his name. His widow, Ginny Just, contributed $10,000 for the facility.
Gary Just, who died in 2002, was a football coach, math teacher and principal at OFHS in the 1960s and 1970s. After retiring in 1978, he worked as an insurance agent for Lutheran Brotherhood, helping people plan for their retirement.
“He didn’t grow up here but made Oconto Falls his own,” Moynihan said.
Members of the Oconto Falls Lions Club also snipped the ribbon, being recognized for the club’s $10,000 donation for an entrance gate.
Moynihan marveled at the point in which the stadium got its start. A group of women decided to take action after several failed athletic field referendums and the bleachers at Memorial Field were condemned and removed.
“From that day we had, I call them, some angry moms, who got together and said, ‘What are we going to do?’” Moynihan said.
Joanne Drews, Kris Coopman, Sue Mogged and Ann (Delzer) Fuelle were the original members of Panther Pride, an organization whose mission was to improve outdoor athletic facilities for Oconto Falls students. The group’s fundraising efforts led to the construction of softball fields at Oconto Falls High School, and things took off from there.
Moynihan called the new stadium “one of the most modern and useful fields in Northeast Wisconsin.”
“It’s going to be an absolute positive asset to the community,” Polashek said, “so we look forward to seeing some really great things and bringing people to town because of what we have here.”
He said it was fitting to hold the dedication ceremony on Labor Day weekend.
“This could not have happened without a lot of labor from a lot of different people,” he said, honoring past and present School Board members and local contractors. “I think there was such a great feeling of pride by all the local contractors involved in this.”
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