BENTON -- After two years in the dark, C.W. Lewis Stadium will shine again.
At 80, the community pillar was home to generations of the Benton School District's middle and high school football games. But after the end of the 2012 football season, the district turned to a new athletic complex.
The ownership changed hands, too: First Security Bank donated it to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, while the district bought an old bank branch building and moved in. After the transfer, the stadium -- named after the former School Board president -- went dark.
"The situation is when you have a property like that, you have to provide regular maintenance: cut the grass, be sure the lights were functioning," said Zulma Toro, UALR provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. "It's a maintenance issue."
But Benton Mayor David Mattingly sought to change that.
About four months ago, Mattingly went to the university's advisory board and pitched his idea to put the stadium to use again.
"C.W. Lewis Stadium will become an adjunct, an addition to the city parks system for at least three years," Mattingly said during a news conference. "In so doing, we will open it up through our parks department scheduling just like Tyndall Park."
The City Council backed the plan. Last week, the 10-member board unanimously allowed Mattingly to enter into a lease agreement with UALR to rent the property.
The lease agreement, which begins today, will continue for three years, costing the city $1 annually. The city can use it for sporting events or other recreational purposes and will be responsible for maintaining the inside of the stadium, along with the grounds.
At the end of the three years, UALR has planned to build a center to accommodate 1,200 students on that site. University officials are still considering what academic programs they will offer at the Benton location, though they don't plan to duplicate any courses offered at its Little Rock campus, Toro said.
"It's not just the education," Mattingly said at the news conference. "It's the economies, the activities, the people -- 1,200 people up and down Market and Main street from 7 in the morning until 9 at night."
In about the same time frame, the city is expected to have completed the new Riverside Park complex at the same site.
The park complex will include a new Boys and Girls Club, a senior adult center, a softball complex and soccer fields.
The city has also entered into a separate agreement with the neighboring First Baptist Church for additional parking during stadium events.
That agreement will last one year and will also cost the city $1. It will allow the public access to the lot off Market Street each day of the week except Sundays and Wednesdays after 4 p.m.
Mattingly has said he's heard from many in the community who are ecstatic about the stadium's return.
Donnie Burks, the executive director of the Benton Athletic Memorial Museum, said the reopening would be great. Burks, a Benton High School graduate, rattled off facts about the stadium and the Panthers' football seasons.
C.W. Lewis -- the school district's third stadium -- was the first to have lights for its football games. The stadium originally seated 450, Burks said.
The first scoreboard featured a large white dial clock with bright red lettering in the center, reading, "Drink Coca-Cola."
Although a track wrapped around it, Burks said C.W. Lewis Stadium was only used for football games.
"Oh no, uh, uh. That was sacred ground," Burks said. "They wanted that football field in top notch."
When it first opened, the district held a dedication ceremony and gave out free barbecue for attendees who paid admission -- 35 cents for adults and 15 cents for students. On nights with football games, residents could hear the noise from the stadium, Burks said.
For nearly two and a half football seasons -- from 1934 to 1936 -- the Benton Panthers had a winning streak at that stadium.
Then, on Oct. 2, 1936, El Dorado High School upended the Panthers in a 26-0 game.
El Dorado High School blew out the Panthers again 76 years later -- Oct. 26, 2012 -- during Benton's last game at C.W. Lewis Stadium. The scoreless Benton lost by 38.
Throughout its lifespan, the stadium underwent renovations -- more seating, the scoreboards, the stadium grounds, a band box. The only remaining object intact from its birth is what Burks calls two headstones that read the year "1934" -- which Burks wants very much to preserve.
Everyone who's walked through C.W. Lewis Stadium has some kind of memory, but it's a new time for Benton and a new era, Burks said of the district's new athletic complex.
"Times change. People move on," he said. "And it's time for a new generation of people to be making their own memories."
Metro on 09/01/2014