By Sheila Crowley
Fulda Free Press staff writer
A large contingency of Fulda School District members gathered in the high school gymnasium this past Wednesday evening. On the agenda was the proposed pairing and sharing of athletics with Heron Lake-Okabena.
The most pressing athletic activity is football. The school board projected nearly six years that this past season would be the last year Fulda could sustain a varsity football squad. Fulda is now at that point. The declining enrollment has translated over to the athletics. This past season there was a total of 18 students participating in football with 11 of those in grades 10-12. Fulda graduates seven seniors which leaves 11 kids 10-12. “This creates a safety concern,” shared Colby Pack, Fulda athletic director. “You are putting 8th and 9th grade athletes on a field with much larger opposition.” According to him students in sixth grade were moved up to fill junior high position and eighth grade moved to varsity.
Last year’s superintendent and athletic director from Fulda approached Murray County Central regarding a possible pairing and sharing in football and possibly girls basketball. MCC was not interested as the combined enrollment would bump the teams to AA versus A. Discussions were also held with Westbrook-Walnut Grove and again, the option was vetoed by WWG. According high school principal, Tyler Walker, there has been conversations with Edgerton regarding football pairing but there was no interest from them either.
One option for next year’s football program would be to play a junior varsity schedule to help develop our ninth and tenth grade athletes. However this means there would be no Friday night football and also how would the senior football players feel regarding this type of schedule. For the past couple of year Fulda has not had a junior varsity schedule.
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