13 replies to this topic

[Hum]

Christmas came early, with an unexpected shade of pink, for the Bondurant-Farrar school district.

The School Board and administration accepted a $3 million donation Monday night designated toward the construction of a high school football stadium. But the generous gift comes with a few strings attached.

The donors, recent $202 million Powerball Jackpot winners Brian and Mary Lohse, requested the project be completed before the fall 2014 football season and the visiting team’s locker room be painted pink.

The completion date makes sense, considering the Lohses’ oldest son, a sophomore Blue Jay on the football team, will graduates in spring 2015. As for the pink locker room, that was Mary Lohse’s sense of humor kicking in with an undying love of the Hawkeyes.

“I was sort of half joking and half not I suppose, but they said they’d do it,” Mary Lohse said of her scheme, inspired by the University of Iowa visitor’s locker room of the same color.

“It’s supposed to put them in a certain soft frame of mind … it will certainly give all the players something to talk about,” she said.

The important thing is that they aren’t talking about the Lohse family, who also requested the stadium not be named after them. They said the stadium will be a community project and they expect local residents and groups to make other contributions.

“The school has been kind of a bedrock for our community and we appreciate all that it’s meant to our kids,” Brian Lohse said. “We’d like to look out for the school a little bit and hasten a project that’s already on the horizon.”

Planning for the stadium has already begun between administrators and architects with SVPA, the local firm that was immediately approved for the project following the acceptance of the donation at the Monday board meeting.

School Board President Kristin Swift expressed gratitude for the unprecedented gift, noting it will significantly free up funding and accelerate other capital projects on the horizon, including an academic wing and a fine arts auditorium.

“It not only gives us the opportunity to accelerate the stadium project, but to advance other plans for projects within the district as well,” Swift said. “We’re very excited about this opportunity.

The $3 million for the stadium will be released in three $1 million increments on March 1, January 15, 2014 and January 15, 2015, according to the agreement.

source

[neufuse]

and he gets a huge tax write off on the winnings

[ILikeTobacco]

neufuse, on 19 December 2012 - 16:15, said:

and he gets a huge tax write off on the winnings

And rightfully so since this saves the school district money which receives its funds from taxes. Citizens should be allowed to choose what projects their tax money is spend on. Overall all this is way to complicated and inefficient for the entire citizen to run only that way but seeing it every now and then, as far as I am concerned, is no big deal. At least these people get to see the results of their money going to the government. That is a luxury few Americans have.

[Hum]

Is pink really going to intimidate the visiting teams ?

[rippleman]

so, instead of doing something honorable like saving 2000 starving kids lives for 5 years (or 10,000 kids for 1 year), they help someone build a bigger place to play? hate rich people. I know it was a good gesture. Just ranting, just sad that we can't solve all the worlds problems

[theyarecomingforyou]

Hum, on 19 December 2012 - 16:02, said:

The donors, recent $202 million Powerball Jackpot winners Brian and Mary Lohse, requested the project be completed before the fall 2014 football season and the visiting team’s locker room be painted pink.

Love it!

[ILikeTobacco]

Hum, on 19 December 2012 - 16:22, said:

Is pink really going to intimidate the visiting teams ?

Considering its for high school kids if I read that correctly.. its feeding off of the same mind sets that causes them to pick on a kid for wearing pink.

[+Blank]

rippleman, on 19 December 2012 - 16:30, said:

so, instead of doing something honorable like saving 2000 starving kids lives for 5 years (or 10,000 kids for 1 year), they help someone build a bigger place to play? hate rich people. I know it was a good gesture. Just ranting, just sad that we can't solve all the worlds problems

How many starving kids do you feed?

[theyarecomingforyou]

rippleman, on 19 December 2012 - 16:30, said:

so, instead of doing something honorable like saving 2000 starving kids lives for 5 years (or 10,000 kids for 1 year), they help someone build a bigger place to play?

There will always be a more needy cause. What about children dying of cancer? What about communities with unclean drinking water? What about preventing child abuse? What about trying to stop genocide? And then you have to ask the question: should we really be supporting unsustainable populations? The current levels of population growth for the planet are unsustainable and trying to save every life on the planet simply isn't practicable, nor is it a reasonable use of the planet's resources.

[SickDave]

rippleman, on 19 December 2012 - 16:30, said:

so, instead of doing something honorable like saving 2000 starving kids lives for 5 years (or 10,000 kids for 1 year), they help someone build a bigger place to play? hate rich people. I know it was a good gesture. Just ranting, just sad that we can't solve all the worlds problems

Honorable to who? You? They have the right to do whatever they like with the money and the fact they're doing something which will benefit a lot of people is a good thing. People like you **** me off, If you really honestly cared you wouldn't be sat on Neowin, you'd be living in the shitholes with those people trying to help. Get a grip, It's easy to say you would help but doing so is another thing entirely.

[Astra.Xtreme]

rippleman, on 19 December 2012 - 16:30, said:

so, instead of doing something honorable like saving 2000 starving kids lives for 5 years (or 10,000 kids for 1 year), they help someone build a bigger place to play? hate rich people. I know it was a good gesture. Just ranting, just sad that we can't solve all the worlds problems

At least he's giving back to the community. Most lottery winners of that magnitude spend all the money on houses, cars, and hookers and then end up broke within a few years.

Just because somebody has money, doesn't mean that everybody else gets a say as to where the money goes...

[torrentthief]

I like painting the visitor's changing rooms pink, good psychological tactic to harm the visitors

[Growled]

It is a nice gesture but they mainly did it for their son, who plays football there.

[rippleman]

muggerfugger, on 19 December 2012 - 17:15, said:

How many starving kids do you feed?

currently 10

SickDave, on 19 December 2012 - 17:34, said:

Honorable to who? You? They have the right to do whatever they like with the money and the fact they're doing something which will benefit a lot of people is a good thing. People like you **** me off, If you really honestly cared you wouldn't be sat on Neowin, you'd be living in the shitholes with those people trying to help. Get a grip, It's easy to say you would help but doing so is another thing entirely.

want a hanky? even though i may not help physically overseas in underdeveloped areas, i do donate to the people/associations that do. Here though i also volunteer roughly 15-20 a week at various places that need it such as hospitals, woman shelters, food drives etc and also give blood as often as the law allows. I do practice what i preach to the best I can. I was commenting previously what i would do had i won the money that they won. As i said... ranting.