Leander ISD snatches bargain stadium

Leander ISD snatches bargain stadium

Written by Jim Dawson Monday, 07 August 2006

A bond passed in the early 1980s gave LISD $500,000 to build a new football stadium. That amount would have allowed the district to build a new 2,000-seat stadium.

According to then school board president A.C. Bible Jr., there was a sort of a catalog of used equipment that schools and school boards could search for various needs. In this case, they found that the “Mojo” football stadium with a seating capacity of 18,000 was up for sale.

Ector County ISD was selling the stadium because it was on Odessa College land and the college needed to expand. The city also needed a larger, more state-of-the-art stadium to showcase their famous Permian High School football teams who were regularly winning state championships at this time.

Bible said that Leander and Pflugerville put out bids for the purchase of the stadium, but Pflugerville could not match the LISD bid of $61,000 because they had not had a bond election yet.

School superintendent Fred Hopson along with John Thurman, chief financial officer, were able to finance the entire operation which included the stadium and the lights to be torn down and transported to its new home in Leander in 1983.

According to the memorial plaque at the stadium, more than 100 trucks hauled a million plus pounds of steel and redwood from Odessa to its present site where the 12,000-seat stadium was reassembled at a cost slightly higher than its original 1950 construction.

Bible said that some of the 6,000 other seats were reassembled at the baseball field.

The stadium was officially named A.C. Bible Jr. - Memorial Stadium in 1997, honoring the former school board president and Leander ISD graduates who died serving their country.

After a Round Rock student fell through the old redwood seat bleachers during a football game in 1998, a complete renovation of the stadium was made. Along with new seats, the stadium became the most handicapped-accessible high school stadium in Central Texas.

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