By Conrad Dudderar
Associate Editor
Miller Stadium’s 12-year-old video board is getting replaced.
Yukon Public Schools’ Board of Education, at its monthly meeting Monday night, voted 4-1 to spend $412,242.07 to purchase a new 30-foot-high, 40-foot-wide board from Video Reality with Pro Presenter graphics. Display size is 1,161 square feet.
Board Member Leonard Wells cast the lone dissenting vote. He cited the high cost (“that’s a lot of money to me”) and the vendor’s “shorter” seven-year parts warranty; other vendors offered 10 years.
YPS Superintendent Dr. Jason Simeroth recommend the purchase, which will be made from the 2021 bond issue.
“You can go full screen, live action,” Simeroth said. “Everything is digital.
“It’s very clear.”
Simeroth pointed out that $500,000 had been allocated in the bond for a new video board at Miller Stadium on the Yukon High School campus, 1777 S Yukon Parkway.
“This isn’t just a football scoreboard; it’s track, it’s soccer, it’s graduation, it’s the band program, it’s all the live entertainment – anything that goes on out there will be broadcast on this,” Simeroth said.
“It’s not an ‘add-on’. It’s not coming out of our general fund. It’s keeping our promise to the voters.”
Five companies bid on the project – with prices ranging from $402,071.60 to $464,250.
Video Reality’s cost will be about $10,000 more than the low bidder, but that company’s board display size was just 700 feet.
Video Reality’s per-square-foot price is $355.07. The other four bidders were $479.16, $574.39, $633.59, and $644.79.
Video Realty’s board also has the lowest pixel pitch (best resolution) – 4.8mm – among the five bidders. The smaller the number, the sharper the image. Other pixel pitches ranged from 6mm to 10mm.
Installation will be in about 12 weeks, according to the bid documents.
“Our goal was to have it up for graduation,” Simeroth told YPS board members. “I think we’ll actually have it up earlier than that.
“Maybe not for soccer, but we should get it for track season.”
CUSTOMER SERVICE
YPS athletic director Brian Hinson referred to the customer service that Video Reality provides.
“I looked at seven different companies,” Hinson said. “With Video Reality, I got great feedback from their current customers and also our IT (information technology) person. Their warehouse is about 10 miles from here; they’re based out of Oklahoma City.”
Hinson mentioned one quote he’s received for about $50,000 to provide sound equipment for the new video board.
“We wanted to change how the sound comes out,” Hinson said. “Currently, it comes out of the board. We want to go towards a more ‘surround sound’ feel.”
Yukon is “way behind” other 6A schools in the quality of its stadium video board, Dr. Simeroth pointed out.
“Everybody around us has upgraded in the last 10 years to these screens in the high school,” he said.
Repairs to the existing Miller Stadium video board – which is original to the school – have cost $10,000 this year alone, Yukon schools’ chief added.
