Justin Adams, President, Boone Booster Club, April 22, 2026

Today on our program, visiting with Justin Adams, not as a fire chief, but as a member of the Boone Booster Club. Good morning, Jim. Good morning, and thanks for taking time to come and visit with us. Thanks for having me. He's actually gonna give us a rundown on what's going on with the Booster Club, and we do have a substantial project. Yeah, yeah, yep. A lot of things in the works right now. So Booster Club, obviously, for folks that know or follow along and support it for years, again, raising money, collecting money, getting funds, but you push them right back into the school, into the different activities and events. Yeah, absolutely. Our mission is to enhance the extracurricular, the, you know, anywhere. For everybody thinks it's athletics, we do more than just athletics. We do athletics, show choir, choir band. A couple years ago, we raised money for a grand piano, $55,000. So there's a lot of things that we help out with, a lot of different clubs within the school that are extracurricular activities. And so there's a 30-member board that we predominantly, besides working the concession stands, we have events throughout the year that we try to raise money and put back into those. One of the unique things, I think, that happened through COVID is, and we've all seen it, Boone's not the first one. They were the first one to come out and talk about budget issues. But since COVID, we've really had to, instead of helping with the extras, we've really had to help with the, some of the everyday things, you know, where the school maybe used to pay for uniforms all the time. Now we're having to pay for uniforms all the time because between a couple things, not as many people are showing up to games. So the gate fees are down a little bit. Gate fees, officials' fees are increased. Price of everything, obviously, through inflation has gone up. And so one of the things that the Booster Club has been able to do is step in with the help of the community and be able to provide those needs and also some of the wants. So concessions, the big way for raising money for... Yeah, it's one of our biggest items between concession stand and then we usually have a lot of clothing sales throughout the year. Those are some of our bigger items. We run all the concession stands at the high school, the middle school, and then at the Gepinger field for whatever events are going on at those facilities. And then throughout the year, like earlier this year, we had our Trivia night, Tailgate Trivia night. That was in February. We're trying to hold that annually right around that time, that Valentine's Day time. Coming up June 19th, we have our second annual golf outing. And so that was another way to raise funds. And then in the fall, we'll usually have some other type of fundraiser coming up to try to increase some funds. The other thing we also have is our annual Boone Booster Club basketball tournament, youth basketball tournament. That's always a two-day tournament that attracts people from all over the state. And so it's exciting to exhausting sometimes. But exciting to be able to help and know what that money is going back for and how to help the student athletes. The club itself, again, like you said, you got a sizable board, but do you have a good membership participating and helping with it? Yeah, absolutely. So we have a 30-member board. I'm the president. Keith Lehmann is the vice president. Jeremy Gustafson serves as our secretary, and Angie Beck serves as our treasurer. And then with that, we're included in that 30-member board. You serve for a three-year term. You can serve for multiple years, as I have, or multiple terms. So this year, we have six members coming off of the, that won't really up their term. And so we'll be looking for six new members to go into the August timeframe. And we have some nominees already, but if people are interested, please don't hesitate to get ahold of myself, Keith Lehmann, or you can call the school activities office and leave your name there, and they'll get that to us. Having a sizable number of people, it makes it a lot easier when you... Yeah. If you want to volunteer, we've got a lot of help, but... Well, as we continue, you know, back in the day, they started with a 15-member board, and they just found out that as the school began to grow and sports began to grow with different activities, and having the concession stand open for more things, they found the need that more people were needed to do that, or you're just going to have to work more shifts. And that whole volunteerism, right, that figure out how many people it takes to volunteer and cover all that stuff. So sometimes it can be taxing, but it's rewarding. Well, you mentioned a couple years ago, again, the grand piano, and I remember when Chris Truck and Miller talked about it, it was there when he, you know, and it was one of those where they used it, they moved it around, and again, hard to keep it in tune and everything. And that was a special project, again, raise the money. You have a new special project. Yeah, yeah, we have a, so it's kind of a two-fold. We're one, we needed a new scoreboard in the pool area, and we needed a new scoreboard at Gepinger Field. The one at Gepinger Field, if people had been around that one the last couple of years, the clock would just stop, and then it would pick back up a few seconds later. Parts for that thing are pretty null and void through Daktronics, those kind of things. And so we sat down. Yeah, we were kind of wondering how old is that? Well, so we tried to, nobody knows exactly 100%, but it's around that 25-year range. Everybody's like, oh, you know, it wasn't that long ago, and then you start looking up parts, and Daktronics is like, no, this thing is like older than you guys think it is. And so replacing that, so again, like we had the pool scoreboard, there we go, and the Gepinger Field. We had a generous donation to be able to cover the pool scoreboard, which was about $75,000. They covered that whole thing. So that was an easy fundraiser, right? Be able to take care of that. We still facilitated a lot of it, worked with the company that thing should be in somewhere around July 1st area. That one will be taken care of. Coach Mayn does a great job with all the swimmers and awning with the divers and those kind of things. And so it'll be cool to see a new scoreboard in that facility. The bigger of the two is the scoreboard at the Gepinger Field. It's about a $190,000 project. It will be a video board to be able to do a lot of different things, add to the sponsorship or marketing abilities. That's one of the big things. The reasons it we went with a digital board, to be able to, you used to be only go to college or professional, and they do all these hype videos. Well, now you go to a lot of high school events and hype videos or those kind of things. So we wanted to be able to have a great experience for our student athletes to be able to have that. We're talking about if we would ever have to do outdoor graduation again because of a pandemic possibly or whatever the situation is, we can live feed into that board. I've already talked with Nate Osmussen from our Rex department about having some outdoor movies, some of those things. So the video board will have a lot of different uses as long as the coordination is able to happen. So right now, we've raised about $155,000 of that $190,000. There's a lot of electrical upgrades that need to happen because the old scoreboard just needed a little power, no big deal, obviously with video board. So we're working through that with Enterprise Electric right now. And we want to be able to take this and present it to the school no cost. Obviously, there's a lot. There are a lot of financial hard times right now. So we're trying to raise the whole $190,000 to be able to present them with a scoreboard that's working everything ready for the first game in August. Good. That's a tight time frame. It is a tight time frame. So it's about a 10-week lead time right now. So if we have, we're hoping by May 1, May 15, somewhere in there, we can put enough money down to get our slot in there and then they would be able to come in about the middle of July and install it to be ready and work out all the bugs before the first football game there in August. So I know that Boone County Community Foundation, that was a $10,000 grant to Mr. Club. Yeah, we've had some, so we have some different funding options from, we have a title sponsor that we're not quite ready to release yet that is, will help pay for about half of the project. We have some generous donations and grants from, like you said, the Community Foundation. We're able to get a $10,000 grant from them, which is awesome. We also have, if anybody has seen our flyers on social media or got one through an email system is, so we have static boards that will go on their static sponsors. So those are $10,000. The big ones are $10,000 sponsors. The smaller ones are $5,000 sponsors. And then there's other opportunities. We haven't decided exactly where the plaque will go to name all the other sponsors. So we have anywhere from a $250 to a $500 to a $1,000 to a $2,500 sponsor that while they won't go on the scoreboard, they will be recognized on the plaque, probably on the concession stand somewhere where it'll list out everybody that's been a donor to that. Get a lot of traffic through there. Yeah, absolutely. Right where everybody comes through. So everybody should be able to see. So doing this, obviously you got some people that are stepping up for it and doing that. And then the sponsors, what about other people that would like to just contribute or groups that might say, you know, this is something we can help support? Yeah, we've had so a couple things is we'll take any amount of money. We've just we had to set a threshold of where that that plaque will be recognized because of the space and those kind of things. But we've had several people just be like, Hey, here's $50. Here's $50. And we're grateful for that. They know that they don't they're not worried about the recognition by having a name on there. Those kind of things. We've had a few groups that have gone together were like in memory of a family member, those kind of things. So that's been neat to see. There's been a lot of different pieces of that puzzle put together on on some of those smaller, you know, donation side of things, more corporate businesses and not even corporate businesses, just local businesses that have been able to step up and and be a part of the the signboard sponsors. So it's picking this out and and knowing what to do. And again, we are talking something that's going to be pretty technical. Right. Yeah. So we worked with with our new 80. Tim Pazzetti, when he came in, he's been involved in a few of these. Yeah. So he was able to when they built the whole Gilbert facility over there, he was coming in with that. And so he has some understanding and his other previous employments there. And so we sat down with him and took a look at some different options, looked at different vendors of what's what was easy for us, what was easy for them, how interconnect ability would work, a lot of those things. And then we selected a vendor and are working through the design phase right now of how everything's going to work. And then, like I said, there's a lot of work that's going to have to be done at the football field or at Gepinger field to be able to power the system and run data cables. And there's a lot of things right there, which those will be one time expenses is once once we're done with that and the board needs to be replaced in the future, we're building it for the future. So the next board, if we're still at Gepinger field, if we're still at our current facility, if we're the other thing that a lot of people would say is, well, what happens if, you know, the school decides to build a new one, that scoreboard's very portable, it's easy to take down, it can go to the next place, those kind of things. So just to have to put in a little new infrastructure. Yeah, yeah, but new, yeah, new infrastructure and you're good to go. So, well, right now, again, you say well on your way. Yes, well on our way. So we're hoping, hoping within this next, you know, 30 days, roughly, that we can finish up that $40,000 gap that we're in a $35,000 gap that we're in and and be able to order, put our order money down for and get our place in the order and then finish out the design and be able to install somewhere like at that middle to end of July and then get all the bugs worked out of it. One of the cool things that will incorporate with this project is like Boone TV, you know, if anybody follows Boone TV is we really want to work with Boone TV, probably the Edge program and be able to produce, you know, either commercials, advertisement, those kind of things and really work with those those clubs and classes. They've got the they've got the resources that will be able to feed to it. Right. Absolutely. Yep. Yep. And so work with those to be able to like produce anything that we need to and play through that. So is this one of those where Booster Club, we'd like to have the money or commitments in hand before we say yeah, that's that's the unfortunate part is we know what our budget is throughout the year and we know how much roughly we raise. And so that that money is kind of committed throughout the year and this is above and beyond that we're trying to work through. So we're trying to all the money that we're asking for is upfront money, unfortunately, which, you know, in this in trying times right now and with the economy, it's a little tougher, but we've had great community support. That's the one thing I can say the last, you know, several years, regardless of how good a team is and not good a team is, whatever is the community support towards the Booster Club has just been phenomenal in the relationships that we've been able to build through either marketing or sponsorships or, you know, game day sponsorships or whatever it is that we have out there, we try to try to, you know, enhance the the the abilities for our clubs, our athletes, the different things that we provide financial support for and the community has been right there, you know, every time, you know, like an example, there's a there's a teacher appreciation coming up and so one of the teachers or one of the administrators reached out and and we're like, yeah, we'll try to help whatever we can with with some snack, you know, just a little snack things or whatever. And so just try to be able to enhance everybody's experience there at the school. So for I'm guessing you guys have been around spreading the word again about the sponsorships and doing things like that. Again, for people if they hadn't heard it before or wondering about it, make contact. What's the best way to go about doing that? Just get a hold of you. Yeah, you can reach me in 515 or excuse me 515-230-0007. Our Facebook is actually the best spot. It has a lot of information. It has all of our contact information on there. You can reach the school and contact the activities department and they'll get a hold of us to be able to work through something. If you've seen our flyers around, we've tried to do a lot of social media posting. We've tried to do a lot of direct email posting. We've worked with the school. They're helping us get the word out because obviously it's a project that will will help the school through that. So yeah. Enhance what's there. Enhance what's there. Well, and again, said I'm I'm thinking back and I'm trying to remember too some of the when some of the work was done on that on that scoreboard initially and sure it was it was a while ago. Yeah, and it's unique. I mean, we've got our money's worth on it. Let's just put it. Yeah, it definitely got our money's worth. You can still see some of the sponsor logos that were on there like Boone Bank and Trust and Moffits and Vision Bank. Boone Farmers Mutual. There's a couple that are not you can't really read anymore. And so one of the things we want to make sure that through the life of this new board is that all those sponsor recognition boards are upkept. And so everybody does know because it's a it's a huge financial, you know, if I had to guess back 25 years ago, that that board maybe cost $50,000. Maybe nobody can really tell us. But you know, in today's world, we're at $190,000, you know, and look at what it turns out to be. It's a video board. Yeah, yeah. And we're very and this is a very, you know, there's way more options that we could have put on this thing and asked for and those kind of things and and but we felt like this was a good board. It's similar to what a lot of the boards that are in our district or excuse me in our in the Raccoon Conference use. And so it was highly recommended. You're very comparable. Is it one of those where should you raise in excess of that you would have at least for the booster club a line item for maintenance stuff? Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that we wanted to make sure that we also help the school with is because there is software. So you're exactly right, Jim. I'm glad you brought that up. There's always software upgrades. Everything's run by computer on this thing. And so one of the things we don't want to burden the school with is those extra software things. And so we're trying to build a little bit of a nest egg also for those options and maintenance that has to go into those things. So yes, if we do raise above and beyond, those will be set aside for those options. Yeah, we'll make it work. Yeah, we'll make it work. You're right. Alrighty. Once again, big project, but at least at this point anyway, making some pretty good progress. And the sooner again, if you'd like to get a determination by May, because I'm guessing you got a little lead time to be able to get everything done. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's been it's been great to work the the fair play as the vendor that we're working with. And so they're very excited to work with Boone. It was kind of funny that they built up like a schematic of what the board would look like. And they had us playing Gilbert and we were tackling Gilbert. And so when we send it out to some some of the businesses, we would get some little jokes back of like, Hey, you know, we're able to tackle Gilbert in this situation. So it's kind of a fun little deal. One of the vendor or one of the companies that we're working with the marketing person, they have some family in Gilbert. And so a little back and forth was kind of fun to look at. So it was nice, a fair play to stick that in there and have it our marketing piece with that. It is a name at least brings a bell with me fair play. They've done several different scoreboard projects. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, they're very well known in the industry. And their technology side of things is great. You know, that's one of the things that we worried about is if we buy today, what is our technology where we add into the future? We didn't want to be able to be like, Hey, we're buying this and three years were out of date to the type of deal. And there's guarantees in the contract and those kind of things. So where we're not in those situations. Alrighty. Justin Adams, president of our Boone Booster Club. And again, well, on our way to getting I didn't even know about the in the pool. I think there was a scoreboard issue there, but I didn't know that would already taken care of. Yeah, there was an anonymous donor that kind of wanted to stay quiet about it and the project. And so we worked with them and there'll be some recognition once it's done and up and an announcement, but they just wanted to keep it on the down low a little bit for now. And we appreciated that. And we're able to, you know, not very often can you sit there and and that, you know, 175,000. So you're talking about almost 260,000, $65,000 worth of scoreboards that we've been able to accomplish in one year. And so again, like I said, it's not without the community support that we couldn't do this. Thanks for joining us and let us know. And good luck on getting everything taken care of. Appreciate it. Thank you.