Last year was exciting for Texarkana, Ark., School District, as it received a $15 million federal magnet grant and authorized $3.9 million in renovations to Arkansas High School's Razorback Stadium.
The renovations, finished before the district's first football game against rival Texas High Tigers, were the first the stadium had seen in decades.
The McDougal Group contractors oversaw the work, which included tearing down restrooms and concession stands on both sides of the stadium and replacing them with updated buildings. The stadium also got ticket booths, a Razorback store and parking lot improvements.
Athletic Director Barry Norton said the changes have brought a lot of red-hog pride to the football team and to the community.
"There's going to be thousands of people annually that are in this stadium," he said prior to the Razorbacks-Tigers game in September. "I think the facilities are a great thing on building pride and maintaining pride. So we will upgrade it and have a state-of-the-art stadium for all of our football, soccer, baseball, track and softball events. It just makes it nice all around."
The renovations were part of $5 million the TASD Board of Directors approved in 2016 for district-wide improvements.
In October, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson visited Arkansas High to present the district with a $14.8 million federal Magnet Schools Assistance Program grant from the U.S. Department of Education. It will be paid over a five-year period and be used for the district's Montage Project, an innovative program that will continue the science, technology, engineering and mathematics thread from the district's elementary schools to College Hill Middle School, North Heights Junior High School and Arkansas High.
TASD is the only district in the state to receive the MSAP grant, which was one of 32 given to schools across the country. It was also one of the largest.
"Arkansas is forging ahead in STEM education, and this not only fits in with what we want to do statewide and as a nation, but it also surges ahead in Texarkana, Ark., School District to lead our efforts here in the state," Hutchinson said during the presentation. "Arkansas is leading the nation in computer science education. We started this initiative because it is important for the jobs and skills that are needed for the future. Right now, we have 5,500 students in Arkansas taking some type of computer science courses. We want to see that number go up."
The district received $9.4 million in 2013 to fund the Leadership and Entrepreneurship through the Arts and Design Project, which was implemented at the elementary level. It focused on teaching students in kindergarten through eighth grade critical thinking skills, service, learning and citizenship as they prepared for success at the secondary level. The Montage grant will pick up where that one left off and allow those students who learned STEM when they were younger to continue their studies at the middle- and high-school levels.