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Modern banners proclaim Kenmare sports feats
A year in the making, new championship banners are now in place in the Kenmare High School gymnasium.
9/12/17 (Tue)
A year in the making, new championship banners are now in place in the
The nylon banners that have the years listed of all district, regional, conference and state championship Kenmare Honker teams, were set in place before the school year started. They replaced wood placards that have been used for nearly 50 years.
Honkers athletic director Brock Zietz said back in the day the placards were unique to the Kenmare gym, but time had taken its toll on them.
“They were hard to take care of and hard to clean,” Zietz said. “And they got knocked down.”
With that in mind, Zietz started looking for alternatives and found a company that was willing to work with Zietz and the Kenmare school district.
He started the process in earnest in August 2016, and locked in a commitment in April of this year.
“I approached it last year,” he said. “I wanted to update the placards. The company had a deal and I made a proposal. It was a year-long process but we got most of what we wanted.”
That meant replacement banners for all the placards that were located on the north and south walls of the gym. It included boys and girls basketball, football, volleyball, track and field and wrestling.
Zietz said the custodians did a great job taking down the placards and hanging the new banners.
Zietz added the banners now include golf championships as well as band accolades and would also include speech should students do well in that category.
The criteria for selecting banners and adding information to them includes those activities that are sanctioned by the North Dakota High School Activities Association.
So what about sports co-ops? In recent years, this current school year included, some of the students are involved in co-ops with other schools. In fact, high school baseball players who play on a team made up of players from MLS, Kenmare, Bowbells, Burke Central and Glenburn, finished in seventh place in the 2017 High School Class B baseball team.
High school softball players co-op with MLS and a new co-op this fall has several athletes running cross country with the Burke Central team.
Zietz said the co-op concept is yet to be discussed but is surely on the agenda since the trend is to use co-ops to form stronger sports teams.
One of the things that’s unique about the new banners, according to Zietz, is that changes can be made easily.
Let’s assume the volleyball team wins a regional or state title. Zietz said it would be easy to add the “2017” year to the banner because the company he is working with will send the school vinyl, adhesive numbers, as well as instructions, so new championship years can be proudly displayed for whichever team performs well in any particular year.
In addition, he said that in case something was lost in transition, such as a wrestler, track athlete or golfer, was missed, it will be easy to rectify it on the banner itself.
Zietz declined to disclose the cost of the nine, pentagon banners, but added the flexibility of easily making changes made it well worth the cost.
Numerous fans have had the chance to see the banners during home volleyball matches and football fans will get their first glimpse of the new decor during Friday night’s home football game.
“These are more modern,” Zietz said. “So far, there’s been a lot of positive feedback. It’s hard to replace something historic, but these are more modern and dress up the gym.” ... Read EVERY WORD on EVERY PAGE of The Kenmare News by subscribing--online or in print!