Lights come down after forty years

The lights of Broncho Stadium were lowered to the ground this week, marking the end of 40 years of service.

The unique old standards have glowed over every home football game since 1976 when the Clarendon community worked together to upgrade the earlier antiquated lights.

Former Clarendon school superintendent Jeff Walker said the story of the lights began when the local manager of West Texas Utilities, the late Allen Estlack, told school officials he would no longer climb the four old wooden poles to service the original lights for safety reasons.

“When he said that, that left us with just one option to work on the lights,” Walker said. “We had to have the highway department use their bucket truck to change the bulbs, and that didn’t look very good.”

The old incandescent bulbs would blow out if they got rain or snow on them while they were burning, Walker said.

About that time, Dave Croslin, then president of the Broncho Booster Club, approached Darrell Leffew about the need for new lights. That led Leffew and the late Earl Ford to approach the school board at get permission to put up six new light standards.

“I think they probably thought we were crazy,” Leffew recalls, “but they let us go ahead.”

The project then took about a year to complete, and Leffew and Walker are both hesitant to try to name everyone who was involved.

“There were just so many people,” Walker said. “It was a true communitywide effort.”

Wayne Riggs got the pipe for the bases of the new lights from Texaco, and used pipe was also secured for the telescoping top sections, Walker said. Leffew’s local manufacturing shop then welded the pipes together and constructed the unique tops for the lights.

Leffew said Walt Knorpp led the drive to get citizens and businesses to buy individual lights to help pay for the project. The late Larry Green drove to Amarillo and hauled a crane to Clarendon that was owned by Consolidated Equipment Sales.

Walker says the highway department dug the holes for the foundations, and Leffew said the first concrete pour came sooner than expected when the late Bernie Green ordered ten yards of cement but couldn’t use it and donated it to the project.

After the poles were erected, Billy Jack Land ran the electric to the new lights, and West Texas Utilities used a system to aim each of the lights individually to give the best coverage on the field.

“I think the school paid about $12,000 in all,” Walker said. “About the same time, Stratford put up four new lights of similar design and paid about $26,000.”

The new lights were better than most other high schools had at the time.

“I remember that first game when we turned them on,” Leffew said. “It was with Childress, and I was in the press box, and the guy from Childress said, ‘Gosh! It looks just like West Texas State here!’”

But after four decades of service, the lights were showing the signs of age with electrical issues over the last couple of football seasons, and school officials were becoming increasingly worried about the old welds on the poles. Earlier this year, the Clarendon school board authorized the purchase of four new lights that will soon be installed.

The old lights, which are literally a product of the people of the community, won’t be discarded though. They will soon find new life at Clarendon’s softball field.

Leffew and Walker are both pleased that lights will continue to shine.

“I didn’t know they would last this long, but I hoped they would,” Leffew said.