It’s been a very long time in the making but West Anchorage High School the original “A” finally has a sports stadium. Finally West can host their own events such as Varsity football games, Varsity Soccer games, and even track meets.

“The idea dated back probably when AFS (Anchorage Football Stadium) was first built, the communities of the respected schools had that idea ever since then, no one acted on that until Chugiak High School got theirs,” said Mr. Joe, who is actually a huge part of the reason the stadium at West was able to be built thanks to his hard work and determination.

There are a few individuals who deserve a humungous amount of credit as well. Ms. Blythe Marston was able to get the idea pushed onto the stage legislature and specifically to Representative Bill Stolze. Mr. Joe added, “We started trying to see what we could do to get one for West around the early to mid 2000’s.” Before our stadium here at West the fields that were used for sports activities and P.E were often described as terrible fields in fairly horrible conditions. “When first got here eight years ago I noticed that not just for sports but for P.E as well, that our fields were horrible,” Mr. Stone stated how he wanted West have what others schools had and that it was frustrating to be last.

Sources say that there were mud puddles, rocks, and stick all over the field and it was unsafe. Fortunately West has friends in high places, thanks to people like Blythe Marston and Representative Bill Stolze, we were to get grants from our state government to cover the cost of initially about $7 million.

The way the construction process went for West was very organized. A engineering company called USKH Inc. was hired and completed all the planning, after that they union went on to hire companies for each specific task(s), such as; Dirt foundation, Cement, the sound system and lighting, and the bleachers .The initial cost was $6.8 million.

The construction on the project broke ground last year, the initial timeframe for it to be finished was at the end of the summer in 2013. Unfortunately in the process of construction there were key delays and miscommunications that caused cost overruns on all of the construction.

Problems with the quality of dirt that was deliver cause a setback to the workers with cement, which cause a delay for the next group of a specific job and so on and so forth. Completion eventually was delayed to end of the summer 2014. Due to more difficulties the process was pushed back to week eight of the regular season to this also pushed back our homecoming. The final cost has been estimated to be about 7.5 Million.

Some more individuals who deserve a lot of credit are Mr. Hosken and Mr. Stone our activity and main principals. They were heavily involved with USKH Inc. and the contractors that worked specific jobs.

When asked about the future of the stadium Mr. Hosken stated, “In the future we will have ALL of our home varsity games here, that’s the plan and intent.” There were some roadblocks of course, the main road black was stadium noise the PA system and fans would make during game since West is very close to many families backyard.

Thankfully we were able to build a shield apparatus that muffles the sound on the outside and keeps the sound inside the stadium. Overall things have finally gotten squared away now student and Alumni can look forward to having team spirit for out West squads.