Imbler School Board approves new track construction, groundbreaking set for August 20
By Garrett Christensen on Thursday, August 15th, 2024 in Featured Stories More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
IMBLER – After months of dedicated planning, outreach, and fundraising, the Imbler Track and Field Community Project has hit its biggest and most important milestone to date. Imbler Track Committee chair Ian Gordon announced that, on August 12, the Imbler Education Foundation officially approved expenditures for the field lights, track base and track surfacing. The next day, the Imbler School Board officially approved the actual construction of the track. Roughly 13 months after its initial announcement, the Imbler Track and Field Community Project will officially break ground.
The groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, August 20 at the Imbler track behind the high school building.
While construction is getting started, fundraising isn’t stopping. As of the last update provided by the committee, the project sits at roughly $920,000, or around three quarters of its total funding goal. This is more than enough money for the essentials, but some costs still need to be covered.
Also keep in mind that, according to Ian Gordon, the track will be unusable during construction, though this is only expected to last a few weeks. The Imbler Football team is likewise making arrangements for when construction is ongoing, and no disruption of the regular games schedule is expected.
For anyone interested in supporting the project, donation information can be found at https://imblertrack.org/?fbclid=IwY2xjawEY77NleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHZhnfwaQYo_hSD8Cwm-aXPZs2400oy5kFwtZQMkn4ucJFZKH1QK2BsuKbQ_aem_6NnYvj70UGChJLOiBgaiTQ
For those unfamiliar with the project, the goal is to construct a state of the art, eight lane, composite material track for Imbler’s track and field program, replacing the long-standing dirt track. When completed, the new track will allow the school to host tournaments, in addition to drastically cutting down on the amount of shin splints suffered by student athletes.
