While the St. Pius X High School community watches progress on construction of a new football field, school President Jim Lehn announced the institution’s annual Fireworks Extravaganza will no longer he held.
The work on the Crystal City’s school campus, which also will include converting the existing football stadium into a soccer field, means the end of the annual July fireworks, Lehn said.
With the reconfiguration of the campus, it would not be wise to conduct a major fireworks show there anymore, he said.
“We’ve got several machines here, and the field is torn apart,” he said. “Logistically, I don’t think it would be a safe environment. We get 500 cars parked here (for the show).”
This is a permanent end to the Fireworks Extravaganza, he stressed.
As to the new football field, he said school officials intend for it to be open for the upcoming 2026 Lancer season. A track will be constructed around the football field in the future, he said.
He said that fundraising for the football field has wrapped at “$400,000-plus,” while the fundraising goal for a new track is $350,000.
“I’m thinking we should wrap this up by Aug. 1,” he said. “We’re absolutely planning to be playing in the new stadium this season. Our first home game falls a little bit later this year. I think our third game will be our first home game. It’s on Sept. 11.
“The football field will be completed. We’ll have the video board, the scoreboard, the bleachers… we’re going to have all that. The track, I’m calling it phase 2. It’s going to require us to raise dollars to get that track.”
He noted that much prep work has been finished for the football facility.
“It is going in on the southwestern portion of our property,” Lehn said. “All demo has been completed. We’ve got the rough grade done on the football field. So, we’ve finished prep work.”
While the field at present looks empty, people will see the work advance in the coming months, he said.
“Construction has not begun because our next big step is to put all the drainage in, which is all your French drains,” Lehn said, “And, conduit for your electrical hookups. All the underground stuff is our next big part.
“So, what we’ve done so far, we’ve taken out the old concrete backstop. We’ve removed the dugouts. We’ve removed the batting cages. We’ve removed the trees. We have tilled and power raked the entire field area. It includes the whole inner circle of where the track will be.”
The new football facility should seat a comparable number of spectators to the old one, he said.
“Right now, the capacity is going to be 750 to 1,000,” he said. “That’s what we’re slating for. But, I’m always looking for ways to expand that. We’re going to have seating on both sides, which is going to be a little different than what we have today. We couldn’t do that before because we didn’t have the space on the other side of the field.
“We are going for a natural grass field,” Lehn said. “We’re not doing turf. A lot of people ask that. We’ll have irrigation. We’ll have lights.”
The soccer field project’s start date has not yet been set, he said.
“That won’t start until this football field is playable,” he said. “Then we’ll get the scoreboard and widen the field and get the irrigation adjusted.”
The football field-track and soccer field projects all are following the construction of a new baseball field on the north end of campus.
The baseball field opened in the spring of 2025, but there are still some final touches to be done, Lehn said. It is named Sapaugh Field.
He said the projects are making the campus a more efficient, as well as safer, environment for the different sports teams.
“We’re excited,” Lehn said. “We’re looking forward to it. We’re excited to see what it’s going to look like. What it’s going to do is, now we can have a soccer game. We can have a football game. We can have a baseball game and a softball game, all at the same time. Before, we weren’t able to. We weren’t even able to play soccer when there was a baseball game, because of foul balls.”
Lehn said school officials are seeking sponsors for the campus sports field projects.
“On our website, we’ve got sponsorship levels – the back of the scoreboard, the field name,” he said. ‘So, we’ve got sponsorship opportunities available.”
To donate or become a sponsor, call Lehn at 314-608-0669 or go to stpius.com and look under “Giving.”