Capturing the spirit

Lights go out at C.W. Lewis Stadium after 78 years

From the left, Peggy Roberson in khaki jacket, Charles Lewis Tull in black leather jacket and Marilyn Schick in red jacket, capture the spirit of C.W. Lewis Stadium during a ceremony after the final Benton High School varsity football game at the stadium on Oct. 26. They are grandchildren of C.W. Lewis and will release the spirit during the first football game at the new athletic complex.
From the left, Peggy Roberson in khaki jacket, Charles Lewis Tull in black leather jacket and Marilyn Schick in red jacket, capture the spirit of C.W. Lewis Stadium during a ceremony after the final Benton High School varsity football game at the stadium on Oct. 26. They are grandchildren of C.W. Lewis and will release the spirit during the first football game at the new athletic complex.

— Benton is a town where the same names on political lawn signs are on retired high school jerseys. Three generations of fans cheer in the stands together. An entire museum is dedicated to the accomplishments of student athletes.

Since 1934, any Benton student who was a marching band member, football player, cheerleader or pep-stepper likely walked the grass at C.W. Lewis Memorial Stadium. The lights have been turned on for more than 1,800 games in the stadium, with standing room-only crowds of more than 5,000 at times filling stands meant to hold just more than 3,000.

On Oct. 30, those lights were turned off for good — at least where Benton football is concerned.

Though the Oct. 30 junior high game was technically the final Benton game played on the field, closing ceremonies were held Oct. 26 for the final Benton High School varsity game. On that night, around 1,800 fans gathered for the last time on a Friday night at the old stadium.

The Panthers lost 38-0 to the El Dorado Wildcats. The final loss may have stung, but at least it was poetic. Seventy-six years earlier, the Benton Panthers suffered their first loss in C.W. Lewis Stadium to the same school.

The place to be

With a population that’s ballooned to 30,000, football is still a focus for Benton. The team’s yearly Salt Bowl against neighboring team Bryant started drawing so many fans it had to be moved to War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.

But if football is big now, it was even bigger in the 1970s. In 1977, the Panthers nabbed their second — and so far, most recent — state football championship.

“We only tied one game that year; we were undefeated on this field,” said Rick Spivey, quarterback for the ’77 team. “They didn’t have reserved seats then, but my parents would always sit up in the top row, where Dad would stand up and lean against the top rail.”

Before sports loyalties became divided between softball, baseball, basketball and soccer, Friday nights were all that seemed to matter.

“I grew up wanting to play [at C.W. Lewis],” said Benton School Board member Heath Nix. “Everybody showed up on Friday nights.”

Few surnames are seen in the Benton Athletic Memorial Museum at the high school more than Nix. Heath’s father played. His uncle, Bobby Nix, was Benton’s first All-American and went on to play for the University of Arkansas in 1964, the year the Razorbacks won the national championship.

“I was born with a football in my crib,” said Nix, who graduated in 1990.

The nights at C.W. Lewis can seem countless for some Benton students, especially for those who came back to the town to raise their families. For Karen Hilborn, the old stadium is “just really home.”

Hilborn teaches in Benton and works as the high school’s head cheerleading coach. After all the games she’s attended — “there’s no telling how many” — the ones from ’77 still stick with her. And they still stick with Spivey, who now runs an insurance agency in Benton.

“That stadium was always packed,” Spivey said. “It was the place to be on Friday nights.”

The family name

Marilyn Schick was in the stands in ’77. Her daughter was a pep-stepper, the third generation to perform at the old stadium. Marilyn will never forget how cold it was for the championship game in Little Rock. She’d been on the Benton High School homecoming court in the ’50s. And her grandfather, without ever stepping in the stadium, managed to make the family’s biggest contribution to the school’s legacy. His name was C.W. Lewis.

Schick and her cousin, Peggy Roberson, were both born in 1934, the year the stadium was completed. Roberson is the historian of the family, using mementos saved by her mother, Lewis’ only daughter, and hours of research to guide her. The results are piled in three-ring binders, but Roberson can rattle off many of the facts without her notes.

Charles Willis Lewis was born in Saline County in 1868. He was in the lumber business, running the aptly-named C.W. Lewis Lumber Company. He served 24 years on the Benton School Board and would often let rural students live in the downtown home he shared with his wife so they could attend Benton schools.

“People ask now ‘Who was C.W. Lewis? Did he play football?’” Roberson said. “But back then, all the people in town knew who grandpa was.”

Maybe it was seeing his son, W.C. Lewis, play in Benton’s 1916 state championship football game that spurred the elder Lewis to advocate building a new stadium for the team. At Fink Field, where the Panthers played at the time, there were no lights and no seating. The team needed an upgrade.

Lewis never got to see the stadium he championed. He died in 1928 of oral cancer. The stadium wasn’t completed until six years later, and it was named in his honor.

Through the years, the stadium saw its share of changes. Wooden bleachers gave way to metal. A bandstand was built. Technology for the scoreboard changed countless times. But in 2010, a new generation of Benton parents started thinking of their kids, as C.W. Lewis had thought of his. They began to think that the students deserved a better field than the old stadium could give them. It was time for a change.

“Grandpa would never have thought it would end up like this,” Roberson said. “It’s been a rollercoaster trip.”

A town divided

In early 2012, the Benton School Board decided that the upcoming high school football season would be the last to put the old stadium to use. Starting in the 2013 season, all games would be played on a new, unnamed field at the Benton Athletic Complex, which also includes a softball field and a field house with an indoor practice facility, weight room, locker rooms and coaches offices. It was announcement several years and many school board decisions in the making. In August 2010, the Benton School Board voted to give additional funding to an in-progress athletic complex in order to make it ready for home games. The new field would move games away from downtown Benton and closer to the new high school that was under construction. The community’s reaction was swift.

“That’s the only place that most people will remember,” said Donnie Burks, executive director of the Benton Athletic Memorial Museum. “Many people knew that eventually [they’d build a new stadium], but not in their lifetime.”

A turnover in school board members brought the issue to a vote again in October 2010. This time, the board changed its mind, reversing the previous decision and stating that they’d instead renovate C.W. Lewis Stadium.

“Anytime you take into account something as historical as the stadium was, you’re going to have controversy,” said former district Superintendent Tony Prothro. “Benton is a district steeped in tradition.”

But the controversy slowly died off as people saw how much nicer the new athletic complex was.

In March 2012, a new school board voted to complete the athletic complex project and ready the stadium for football. Funding for the athletic complex is ongoing, but the phase that included the field house, visitor’s side concession stands and parking cost around $8 million, said Steve Quinn, Benton co-athletic director. In 1934, C.W. Lewis Stadium had been completed for under $15,000, according to Roberson.

For families who moved into the district more recently, the change seemed like nothing but a positive. The new stadium would offer artificial turf, more seating, improved bathroom facilities and expanded locker rooms. Players would no longer be bused from a locker room at the high school to the downtown field every Friday night. A track around the field meant a safer spot for cheerleaders and pep-steppers to perform for the crowd.

But the change was especially hard for parents and grandparents who had been going to C.W. Lewis Stadium for decades. People on both sides of the issue spoke at school board meetings. Letters to the editor popped up in the local paper. People would stop by Spivey’s office to ask what he thought. Roberson received phone calls.

“From a nostalgic standpoint, I could see where people were coming from,” Burks said. “But I’m sure some people who had played on Fink Field [in 1916] weren’t crazy about playing at C.W. Lewis.”

Time to move on

By the time the Benton School Board decided to ready the new stadium for football, the city had quieted on the issue. Many of those Benton residents who had sat in the stands for years began to see that it wasn’t personal. It was for the kids.

“This place holds a whole lot of memories, but it’s time to say goodbye,” said Margie Hughes, as she watched for her grandsons to run onto the field in Panther uniforms on the final Friday night. Hughes went to elementary school in a building near the stadium. She remembered taking class pictures on the wooden bleachers in first grade.

“I love the stadium and its history, but change is inevitable, ” Hughes said.

Instead of leaving the field after their loss to El Dorado, the final Benton High School team to play at C.W. Lewis walked to the center of the field for a closing ceremony. The 10 minute mini pep rally may not have meant much to the kids, but it didn’t matter. They cheered and played the alma mater because it was important to everyone else.

“The kids in high school now, it’s not as sentimental to them,” Karen Hilborn said. “We tell them Benton has been playing football there for 78 years, and they can’t wrap their minds around that.”

Hughes’ grandson, senior football player Brody Barker, had hoped to play his final season at the new stadium. But now he gets to say he played the last game at C.W. Lewis Stadium, Hughes said.

As the closing ceremony came to an end, Roberson and Charles Lewis Tull, Roberson’s brother, dropped the lid on a small trophy “spirit-keeper” intended to help capture the spirit of C.W. Lewis Stadium. It will be “released” at the first home game on the new field next season.

But it won’t take a trophy to bring the spirit of the old stadium to the new. After all, Hughes has another grandson to watch on the field. Hilborn has more girls to coach. Spivey doesn’t plan to give up his seats.

“When you look at that new facility, you know it was time to move on,” Spivey said.

Staff writer Emily Van Zandt can be reached at (501) 399-3688 or evanzandt@arkansasonline.com.

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