Greene County unveils plans to upgrade facilities

Roddy Kibler moved to Greene County over 30 years ago with a Master’s degree in school psychology, and has served in the county’s school system ever since.
On Thursday night, Kibler, now the President and Chairman of the Greene County Athletic Foundation, unveiled the group’s plan to revitalize the school’s athletic and fine arts facilities, and has brought in some heavy help to get the ball rolling.
Senators Ed Robb and Russ Potts joined the movement about a year ago, and are ready to embark on a multi-million dollar campaign that will help William Monroe High School and Greene County take extra pride in the area’s high school sports and arts.
“A lot of us looked at our athletic facilities over time and hoped that we could offer our young people and our coaches a lot more,” said Kibler, who sent four kids of his own through Greene County public schools.
The goals for the campaign consist of the following; constructing restrooms, new dugouts and a press box for the softball and baseball fields, resurfacing a new polyurethane track around the football field, installing tennis courts with lighting (Greene County currently has no public tennis courts), improving the existing bleachers, concession stand and restrooms for the football field and soccer stadium, and completing construction of both the Adam Fargo Memorial Field House — named in honor of a former William Monroe All-district soccer player who was killed in Iraq a few years ago — and the Raymond C. Dingledine Performing Arts Center.
The estimated cost for the project is $2.3 million, and the foundation hopes to have everything completed and in use by 2011. The board is comprised of Kibler, Victor Schaff, Rob Lynch, Ray Dingledine, Carroll Deane and Frank Luth.
Former University of Virginia football coach George Welsh
addressed those in attendance, and spoke about the importance of fundraising and facilities for success in athletics and an overall sense of pride for a community or organization.
Robb was first transferred to Greene County in 1971 as an FBI agent, and represented the county in the state Senate for four years.
“I can’t believe the support that I got from Greene County,” admitted Robb at Thursday’s Kickoff Ceremony. “We really got a lot accomplished at that time, and I loved representing Greene County, and so that’s the position I’m taking again.
“If any school system or any community needs top-notch facilities, Greene County does, and I fully expect to put in a lot of time and energy in working on this very worthwhile and important project.”
Kibler expressed his excitement and gratitude for Robb and Potts’ involvement in this venture.
“These two gentlemen will be intimately involved in our fundraising effort,” he said. “We want to do this professionally, we want to reach out into the community and the corporate community at large and really go after this rather remarkable goal.”
Dave Jeck, the superintendent of schools in Greene County, and former Louisa County High School principal from 2001-05, said that this wouldn’t be possible without Robb and Potts.
“They have experience in communities like ours,” Jeck said. “They’re great at networking and finding out who’s interested in contributing, and honestly without a group like that, we couldn’t do this.”
Potts, who served in the Senate for 16 years, much of that time as chairman of the Education and Health Committee, has been involved in similar projects, and hopes that this campaign will be as successful as others.
Jeck explained that now is the time to push hard to get something done.
“We probably have the only school, maybe in the state, that doesn’t have lights on either the football or softball field,” he said. “If we’re playing someone like Fluvanna County at home on a weekday, then they have to leave school at around noon to get here and play a J.V. and varsity game before it gets dark. That’s not a good thing to do to kids.”
Kibler said that improvements to the facilities would improve the self-esteem of the community and the mindset of the students in terms of being on a competitive level with the other schools in the Jefferson District.
The Greene Dragons are in the midst of a coaching search for football, and everyone agrees that potential candidates’ priorities lie with what kind of facilities the school has to offer.
Welsh said that to be successful, you must have elite facilities, or at least the plans in place to attract recruits in his case, and in the case of William Monroe, a new head coach to take the program to the next level.
Kibler has spent a near lifetime of contribution to William Monroe and Greene County, and he speaks for all involved when he says that this project will ultimately affect the youth of the area in the future.
“I think we all feel that we want to leave something behind that has some meaning for the next generation,” said Kibler. “For a guy who loves sports and his kids love sports, I’m thinking we’re going to do a great service for the next generation.”