Supervisors see night-lights demo at high-school stadium

Mike Riley punched some switches in a small control room just off a moonlit football field Tuesday night and tall banks of stadium lights slowly began to glow, reaching peak intensity in about 10 minutes.

The football field became a brilliant green carpet surrounded by its black, oval track, bathed in the glow of "Friday night lights."

The scene was the football stadium at Skyline High School, south of Front Royal, where Riley is director of maintenance. His guests from Rappahannock County were there to observe the sports-lighting system installed at the year-old high school by Musco Lighting, the same company that proposes to light three athletic fields at Rappahannock’s public schools.

On hand were County Administrator John McCarthy, Board of Supervisors members Eddie Wayland of Piedmont District and Ron Frazier of Jackson district, and a reporter. The point was to assess how the lights might look if installed at Rappahannock fields, and how visible or disturbing the lighting might be for residents of Rappahannock, famous for its dark night skies.

The reaction of the Rappahannock officials, as judged by their comments during the demonstration, seemed mostly favorable, and Riley’s own assessment of the Musco Lighting systems bordered on enthusiastic. "I don’t think you can go wrong with them," he told his guests. Four steel monopole towers, about 110 feet above the gridiron, each carried a bank of a dozen intense lamps, each carefully aimed at a specific point on the field. Riley apologized that one of the four banks of lights was inoperable, due to an outage apparently caused by a recent lighting storm. Even at three-quarters power, the light system seemed to illuminate the field well.

After viewing the lights from the edge of the field, the Rappahannock visitors retreated to the periphery of the fenced stadium, behind the light towers, for a view from that distance. Beyond the immediate field area, there was relatively little light spillage from the down-shielded fixtures.

Frazier, who arrived after the light show began, observed for a few minutes, then said: "It’s actually directed pretty well onto the field."

McCarthy also made several favorable comments on the lights and their impact, noting the relative darkness of the area beyond the playing field. Riley emphasized the ease of maintenance on the system, saying, "I’ve had one set of (Musco) Lights in for 10 years (at another location) and I haven’t yet changed a bulb." (Riley said Warren County schools did not purchase Musco’s maintenance agreement–as is contemplated under the proposed Rappahannock deal–because it was uneconomic considering the little maintenance needed.)

Bulbs cost $300 to $400 each, he said, but when Musco put in the other system 10 years ago, the company gave him five extra bulbs and he still has four of them. He’s very satisfied with Musco Lighting both in performance and economics. When the county bid out the job, Musco’s competitors "were about one-third higher in price," he said.

There’s no doubt, based on the viewing Tuesday night, that neighbors with a line-of-sight view of any of the three football, softball and baseball fields in Rappahannock will see the tall stadium lights when they are on during games. While there seems to be relatively little light projected upward into the dark sky, the glowing tower banks of lights are brilliant when viewed straight-on from a distance–as a neighbor anywhere near the school fields would see.

Wayland agreed that nearby neighbors, such as the Gadino winery near the baseball and softball fields behind the elementary school, or the Blue Rock Inn and homes across Route 211 from the football/soccer stadium at the high school, would surely see lights directed their way. But he said he doubted the lights would bother residents a few miles away, such as in Sperryville.

Another similar light show was scheduled for 9:30 this evening at the Eastern View High School in Culpeper, for supervisors who missed the demonstration at Front Royal.

RCSSA says it intends to raise all the funds needed for the project through private donations, but it wants the county government to sign a 10-year lease-purchase agreement to guarantee the payments, because more favorable financing terms are available if the county is backing the project with its credit.

As originally outlined by RCSSA, the system for the three fields would cost $395,000 installed; with financing over 10 years, annual payments were to be $51,132, or over $511,000 total. However, because of a $100,000 up-front donation by a yet-unnamed donor, the amount to be financed is now projected at $285,000, resulting in 10 annual payments of about $38,000, or $380,000 total. In return for the large donation, the anonymous donor has been granted naming rights for the baseball field, according to McCarthy.