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Thank you for remembering my grandmother and father. Donna Puckett, Jonesville NC...read more...

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Just as the Lincoln County track and field program has completed its best season in recent years, the Patriots once again have a home they can be proud of.

The long-awaited rebuilding of the track at Lincoln’s Death Valley stadium is finally complete, giving the team a place to practice and the opportunity to host meets in seasons to come.

Lincoln County Schools superintendent Larry Woods and Board of Education members were on hand for a dedication ceremony on June 9, but Lincoln athletic director Steve Ralston said the facility has already been in use for about three weeks.

“We needed this so the kids could practice on it (before state) and so they could have meets. The kids deserve to have that,” Ralston said.

Particularly now, at a time when the school’s track program appears to be on the rise. The team sent 12 athletes to the state meet in Louisville and got a second-place finish from Zack Hill in the Class 3A high jump and an eighth-place medal from Emily Frith in the Class 3A 3200-meter run. The team got to practice on its new surface for about two weeks before its regional competition, where Lincoln athletes won six championships.

“I feel like we’ll have a lot more kids come out now and we’ll have a lot more pride in the track team,” Ralston said.

There will also be more meets. Ralston estimated that it has been about five years since Lincoln hosted a meet, but he said he expects some home meets to be on next year’s schedule.

Lincoln had a home meet scheduled for May 14, but the striping of the new surface wasn’t completed until the day before, and the meet had already been canceled because of the possibility that the track wouldn’t be ready.

The worn-out track that was replaced had been the only paved track the stadium had ever had. Ralston said it first opened as a gravel track, then was paved in the 1980’s.

He said financial restraints forced the school to take some time to finish the new seven-lane rubberized surface. The oval was blacktopped and widened two years ago and finally rubberized this spring. The work was done by the same Michigan company that worked on the Boyle County track.

“It’s been four or five years in the process of getting it done. With the budget crunch, it was hard to get it done any quicker,” Ralston said. “The Board of Education did a great job of getting behind this and did a great job of getting it through.”

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