Morrill hosts town hall to discuss potential 10-acre ag facility at Brownsfield

Discussion about the possibility of turning Brownsfield Baseball Park into an agriculture education facility at Morrill Public Schools took on a little heat at a Morrill Town Hall meeting Wednesday night.

Village board chairman Tony Schuler opened up the meeting with some background information on Brownsfield. The village estimated that it would take an average cost of $20,140 a year to maintain the field and $500,000 to replace the lights at the field, which are currently not up to standards.

The village also noted the declining numbers in baseball/softball participation, having gone down to 45 athletes in 2019 compared to 101 athletes in 2015. There was no baseball or softball in the summer of 2020 due to the coronavirus.

Schuler opened it up for any comments or questions before turning it over to Morrill Public Schools. Don Weinmaster, one of the original contributors to the baseball complex, voiced his frustrations with turning the field that he and his friend Bernard Brown, who donated the land for it, had put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into for the kids.

“I hate to see it go clean away from the kids because that’s what we built it for. That was the vision,” he said. “Mr. Brown told me that’s what he wanted, and I named it after him because of the donations that he made to us.”

Schuler explained the terms of the deed to the property that the village received from the Legion. Brown originally donated the land to the Legion. Then the Legion deeded the property over to the city in 2002. There was a resolution in the deed that said the Legion would pay $2,000 a year to the village to maintain the property, but the last payment the village could track was back in 2003.

The deed also said the field only had to remain Brownsfield if baseball is played on those fields. “Subject to the property being named Browns Legion Park, while it is used as a ballpark,” Schuler read the deed’s wording to the town hall.

If the property were to be sold or traded to the school, Brownsfield would become an agricultural education complex for FFA students to get hands-on experience in different ag sectors outside the classroom. One of the biggest advantages of having this facility, Superintendent Joe Sherwood said during the presentation, was the ability to provide for students who don’t come from farm families and don’t have the space of their own for animal science or plant and horticulture projects.

Sherwood presented an outline of what the complex might look like and why it would be beneficial not only to the school, but to the students, citing the growing ag programming at Morrill. Five years ago, the FFA program had about 35 students involved, and now has 78 students.

“What I’m saying to you is, we’re in a growth trajectory with ag education,” he said. “And this facility could easily move us that direction.

Some community members voiced concerns over the cost of the ag project. Despite Sherwood’s research into the many grants available, he did not have estimated numbers for the actual cost of such a large project.

Sherwood said the school would most likely take on this project slowly, possibly even constructing one building a year. He also suggested that the project has the opportunity to impact other programs at the school, including the industrial arts students, who could get hands-on learning experiences by helping with construction.

Sherwood said the nice thing about the 10-acre property is that it is development ready. Even if the school only builds one building a year, the FFA program will still be able to begin projects like cutting sod and planting trees at the complex right away. He said that head-start opportunity is lost if they were to try to make a condensed version of the complex at the 3-acre property near the football field, which some community members thought should be an option in order to save the baseball programs.

Morrill Athletic Club president April Ott shared if the community wanted to keep Brownsfield, then parents needed to step up, volunteer and help out with the programs.

“Every year it gets less and less people,” she said. “Once we get registrations we start knocking on doors…calling around begging and pleading parents, ‘Will you please be a coach?’…No one responds to our calls.”

The number of children and young adults at the meeting to defend baseball and softball was telling. While no student stood up to defend the baseball programs, three students from the Morrill-Mitchell FFA Chapter stood up to explain why this facility would make an impact for them and their education.

“I remember when I was younger, I looked up to every FFA member I saw,” Morrill freshman Kaitlynn Deines said. “As someone said before, a lot of memories have been made on that baseball field, but just because we’re adding new facilities to it, doesn’t mean we can’t make more good memories.”

No decisions were made at the town hall meeting, but discussions will continue at the next village board and school board meetings. Many community members expressed deep emotions for either side. Community member Bob Bentancur left the meeting on a passionate note.

“Agriculture is changing. Those kids have the keys to unlock the promise of what’s going to happen tomorrow,” he said. “Please don’t give up on the future of those kids. Don’t limit ourselves to what was. Let’s look at what will be.”

*Originally published in the Scottsbluff Star-Herald on Sep. 26, 2020.