RIPON – Digging through Stouffer Field grounds, volunteers came across some buried items during work on the Ripon High stadium.

“What we found were some (old) buried shot puts,” Vince Hobbs told the Ripon Unified school board at Monday’s meeting held in the Council Chambers.

He’s part of the Ripon Community Athletic Foundation. During the winter break, Hobbs and others – included were his sons, Luke and T.J., along with other families and community members – spent time on Stouffer Field.

“It was a great group of volunteers from the community,” he said. “We also had the support from (local) businesses.

“If we needed something, they did so at little or no charge.”



Work included:

• Demolishing the old pads for shot put and discus events while hauling the concrete away. The new venue will be located along the north side of the track.

• Painting and cleaning the press box.

• Cleaning and prepping the long jump and triple jump area for the upcoming track season.

•  Relocating the field house.

• Demolishing the old batting cages behind the visitors section, with Burkett Pool Plastering bringing out a crew to not only do the job but also  haul away the concrete.

• Assembling new batting cages and applying high quality paint on the poles to prevent rusting.

• Gathering and moving the football practice apparatus along the fence.

• Doing additional grading around the temporary storage area behind the baseball field.

• Removing the monkey bars.

Stephanie Hobbs, president of RCAF, was also grateful for the support.

“As you know, this was a huge undertaking – one that takes a lot of committed people,” she said.

Among those Hobbs recognized were Josh Fredriks from Ripon High’s Class of 2004 and Christian Spence from the Class of 2010.

Spence, for example, is experienced in construction work. He installed the insulation and panels on the front of the field house. Fredrikzs handled the painting, including a fresh trim coat of red acrylic paint inside the press box.

In addition, Rick Hogan of Hogan Drywall donated his crew along with some sheet rock; Scott Ambrose did rough electrical work; Chad DeGraff of DeGraff Development arranged the insulation donation and HighLift rental; Volvo Rents provided the reach fork lift; and Steve Bickle from Gate OR-Door, Inc. took the time to remove and install the huge garage doors.

Vince Hobbs said that RCAF is still working towards getting a new state-of-the-art score board for stadium.